Content uploaded by Michael James Winkelman
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Michael James Winkelman on Nov 02, 2020
Content may be subject to copyright.
8
SHAMANIC GUIDELINES FOR
PSYCHEDELIC MEDICINE
MICHAEL J. WINKELMAN
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
The use of psychedelic substances for medici nal and therapeutic purposes
has been around for many thousands of years. These substances are closely
related to the practices of shamanism, which has an antiquity of 40,000 years or
more, stretching back to the dawn of modern human cultural capacities (Lewis-
Williams 1997; Clottes and Lewis-Williams 1998; Ryan 1999; Winkelman
2002a, 2004a). Ritualized use of psychedelic substances likely has a similar
antiquity because hunter-gatherer diets inevitability included such substances
ingested in the form of various species of psychedelic mushrooms. Shamanism
and the ritual use of psychedelic plants coevolved deep in prehistory, contribut-
ing to selection for the characteristics of the human brain and consciousness,
as well as evolved psychologies and therapies (also see McKenna 1992).
Clinical management of psychedelic medicines is central to shamanic heal-
ing traditions around the world,
1
which are repositories of millennia of clinical
experience and knowledge regarding the best applications of these substances.
These ethnomedical traditions constitute a clinical science that provides impor-
tant guidelines relevant to contemporary applications of these substances in
medicine and therapy. These traditions provide clinical knowledge regarding
a range of strategies and “best uses” approaches regarding the application of
psychedelic medicines. This knowledge includes ritual structures in preparation
for their use, guiding their application and producing optimal effects; conceptual
frameworks for understanding and managing the manifestations of the spirit
world that are central to these “entheogens”; preliminary screening for a range
of psychoactive agents with specific applications (e.g., depression versus addic-
tion), revealing the selective and individual effects of these diverse substances,
and consequently their potential applications for a range of specific conditions.
This chapter provides an overview and integration of shamanic perspectives
as guidelines for therapeutic approaches with psychedelics. Shamanic therapeutic
approaches have very different emphases than biomedicine and Western psycho-
therapies, and consequently provide new perspective for contemporary and future
applications of these substances in medicine and therapy. The management
of psychedelics in therapeutic processes is suggested by the basic principles
and features of shamanism, a primordial form of spiritual healing that was a core
aspect of the evolution of modern human consciousness some 40,000 years
ago (Winkelman 2002a, 2004a). Shamanic guidelines for psychedelic clinical
medicine are derived from a “shamanic paradigm,” an understanding of the bio-
logical basis of these spiritual healing practices as an aspect of an evolved human
psychology (Winkelman 2000, 2002b, 2004a,b). Shamanic healing rituals have
universal (cross-cultural) patterns that also have homologies and continuities
with the ritual activities of primates, pointing to the evolved and neurobiological
bases of these healing practices. The universal features of shamanism found
in foraging soci eties (Winkelman 1992) pointed to th eir biological bases
(Winkelman 2000 , 2004a). Shamanism deve loped a “natural p sychology”
approach to managing psychedelics based on their adaptations in enhancing the
integrative processes of the brain (Winkelman 2000, 2002a).
Shamanistic healing practices are intimately linked to psychedelic medicines
in the training of healers their awareness of and access to spiritual powers, their
diagnostic procedures, and their healing practices. Core aspects of the shamanic
world view, healing practices, and concepts of illness involve dynamics that are
homologous to the effects of these psychedelic medicines, suggesting that they
may have contributed to the development of shamanism. These homologies of
shamanism with psychedelic experiences constitute neurophenomenological
effects (Laughlin et al. 1992), where the phenomenological aspects of experience
directly reflect the operations of the brain and the physiological properties of
these substances (see Winkelman 1996, 2000, 2001).
These biological bases for ritual healing provide a natural theology or
“neurotheology,” a biological structuring of spiritual beliefs and practices that
underlie the universality of shamanic activities. The traditional shamanic practi-
ces for utilizing these substances in diagnosis and healing derive from a kind of
“natural psychology” of these substances, their inherent psychophysiological
dynamics (Winkelman 1996, 2003). These dynamics were noted by De Rios,
who pointed to the cross-cultural patterns of use and interpretations of these
substances. These involve the experience of what is conceived of as a primordial
reality, one constituted by an intimate communication and connection of humans
with animals and plants. These aspects of nature were personified, constituting
144 PSYCHEDELIC MEDICINE: ADDICTIONS MEDICINE AND TRANSPERSONAL HEALING
animal powers and other entities that could help achieve goals and meet human
needs. These relations with nature were also relations with aspects of the self
and concepts of “others,” exemplified in the shamans’ animal powers and the
concepts of these plant substances as “teachers.” The physiological effects
of these psychedelic medicines produce a specific spectrum of psychological
experiences that is core to their effects and exemplified in one of the terms used
to refer to these substances—“entheogens”—meaning “generating the experience
of the god within” (Wasson et al. 1978; Ruck et al. 1979). This term reflects
the frequent encounter with the divine that occurs during these experiences,
manifested in terms such as “voices of the gods,” reflecting a potential of their
pharmacological properties that seems to easily manifest with appropriate set
and setting (personal and situational expectations).
Noted effects of these substances reported in traditions around the world and
their similarity to shamanic practices reveal natural indigenous “neuropsychol-
ogy” engaged by these psychedelic medicines. This neuropsychology is reflected
in the similarities between the shamanic world view and the frequently noted
aspects of psychedelic experiences such as a connection with nature, the per-
ception of nature as alive, the sense of one’s self apart from one’s body and in
“another world,” and the relationship of one’s self or experience to animals.
The shamanic paradigm provides guidelines for enhancing psychedelic elements
in therapy. This emphasizes the importance of generic elements of shamanic
therapeutic practices, including an animistic world view embracing animism—
the spirits—as a fundamental aspect of reality; the importance of a group ritual
context engaged through chanting and singing; restrictions such as diet and sex-
ual abstinence; incorporation of dream processes; spiritual experiences involving
a transformation of self manifested in death-and-rebirth experiences and out-of-
body experiences; engagement with one’s self in relationship to nature, espe-
cially through animal transformation. These practices and perspectives provide
a broader clinical tradition within which to manage the diverse potentials of
psychedelic substances. This chapter begins with an overview of a variety of
models of psychedelic therapeutic use from shamanistic perspectives. Some
of these have distant connections with the shamanic roots of these practices and
limited engagement with this ancient shamanic knowledge regarding the best
uses of psychedelic medicines.
PSYCHEDELIC MEDICINE AND SHAMANISTIC HEALING
Metzner (1998) provides an overview of a variety of shamanistic patterns of
use of psychedelic medicines, ranging from the therapist alone using the substan-
ces to their ingestion by an individual client, in small groups and in community-
wide settings. In classic anthropological terms these range from shamanic to
priestly foci and from professional activities and small community contexts
involving the primary groups to community-wide church settings led by a priest.
SHAMANIC GUIDELINES FOR PSYCHEDELIC MEDICINE 145
These priestly practices are exemplified in the so-called Brazilian Ayahuasca
Relig ions, in the Peyote Relig ion, and in the Huichol pil grimage.
2
These
latter communally organized uses have shamanic origins, constituting a broader
shamanistic dynamic of the use of ASC (altered states of consciousness) that
reflects the universal principles of shamanic healing (Winkelman 1990). They
do not, however, reflect the core foci of the shamanic approaches to the use of
psychedelic medicines. Rather their communal dynamics are more reflective of
what is called religions ecclesiastical cults (Wallace 1966). The following section
provides a brief review of these shamanistic practices before turning to the core
shamanic aspects of psychedelic medicines.
The Priestly Traditions: Community Bonding
Rituals
Metzner draws a distinction between entheogen-based shamanic rituals
and folk religious ceremonies involving plant entheogens. Noting that the distinc-
tion is somewhat arbitrary because there is a continuum between them, Metzner
nonetheless illustrates a distinctly different dynamic of use of the psychointegra-
tors in “priestly” settings. These distinctions between shamanic and priestly
organizations of ritual are part of the longstanding traditions of anthropology
and substantiated by systematic cross-cultural research (Winkelman 1986a,
1990, 1992).
The settings of these priestly traditions are more typically recognized
as involving churches and led by a hierarchy of official leaders. These churches
help create a sense of community, strengthening bonds among the members.
The Brazilian Ayahuasca religions such as Santo Daime and Uniao do Vegetal
and the Native American Peyote Church exemplify these practices.
3
The use of
psychedelic medicines in these settings may not produce visionary experiences
or is thought to do so only rarely. The congregation generally stands or sits, sing-
ing throughout much of the night, often in well-lit rooms. Rather than personal
insight or visions, the priestly context emphasizes participation in an organized
singing of a standard set of songs. Community cohesion is enhanced by these
and other group activities that give the members a stronger sense of belonging
to a personally engaged community. Many of these (e.g., Peyote Church and
Brazilian Ayahuasca Churches) have explicitly incorporated Christian elements,
constituting syncretic religions that integrate these ancient shamanic elements
within a modern religious ideology.
THE PEYOTE RELIGION AS “PRIESTLY” HEALING
4
The NAC (Native American Church) is not a traditional healing practice but
a syncretic religion that combines Christian elements with use of peyote (Lopho-
phora diffusa and L. williamsi), hence its unofficial name the “Peyote Religion”
(see Calabrese, this volume; also Aberle 1966; Weidman 1990). The positive
146 PSYCHEDELIC MEDICINE: ADDICTIONS MEDICINE AND TRANSPERSONAL HEALING
effects of the peyote religion on psychological well-being and psychosocial
adjustment are attested to in the accounts of Native Americans, the observations
of physicians, and the reports of anthropologists. Weidman has documented
some of the many ways in which the Peyote Way constitutes a health service.
The effects of NAC have been characterized in terms of Native Americans com-
munities. The church emphasizes a moral code of devotion to family, abstention
from alcohol, and obligatio ns to the c ommunity help par ticipants find the
strength, motivation, and support to avoid alcohol and to accept their responsibil-
ities. The sense of unity and oneness with the universe that peyote evokes
has played an important role in recreating a sense of community identification
that was undermined by forced acculturation to European American culture.
Aberle suggested that the social psychological effects of NAC participation
include providing guidance and purpose, resolving marginalization, aimlessness,
and helplessness, and inducing a release from guilt. The community focus affords
the opportunity to reflect on one’s relationships and conflicts, providing the
opportunity to resolve problems. Community support within the NAC reinforces
goals, commitments, and objectives formulated from the inspirations acquired
during the peyote ritual. The NAC provides a reference group that meets needs
for approval and esteem, fosters adjustment between Native American values
and those of the broader society, and guides a balance between collectivism
and individualism. Peyotism reinforces traditional values relating to community
integration and spirituality and provides an alternative to the dominant American
society’s values. Its focus on an ethical code of brotherly love, care of family,
self reliance, and avoidance of alcohol involves social orientations that differ
significantly from the visionary and altered state emphases of the shamanic
practices.
VEGETALISTAS: MESTIZO SHAMANISTIC HEALERS
The mestizo vegetalista traditions reflect a greater blend of the shamanic
roots into modern traditions, reflected in their emphasis on the visionary experi-
ences of both the healers and the patients. These mestizo ayahuasca ceremonies
usually involve a small group of people in an intimate setting. These sessions
take place at night and in darkness, generally in the home of the vegetalista.
Beginning around sunset, the ceremony starts with a loose social interaction,
including the vegetalista recounting stories of previous healing successes. In a
ceremony that clearly reflects the syncretic blending of Christian elements, the
vegetalista performs an invocation of Jesus, Mary, saints and other spirits for
protection. But the primary focus is on the spirit of ayahuasca and the brew
consumed by the participants, which is dispensed in a style reminiscent of the
Catholic priest’s administration of the communion Eucharist. The participants
generally stay overnight and perhaps into the early morning when they share
what they experienced in their visions. These disclosures are generally used by
the vegetalista to make an interpretation of the cause of their illness.
SHAMANIC GUIDELINES FOR PSYCHEDELIC MEDICINE 147
SHAMANIC TRADITIONS OF PSYCHEDELIC THERAPY
These communal priestly dynamics contrast starkly with the more traditional
shamanic and mestizo orientations characteristic of the psychedelic medicine
traditions, epi to mized by the ayahuasque ro t raditions of South Am er ica
(see Luna 1986). In many respects, these reflect the classic dichotomy embodied
in the contrast of the pr iests —who mediate with the supernatural and the
shaman—who enters into the supernatural. The effects of psychedelic medicines
are central to the worldview of shamanic practices that emphasizes the direct
encounter with visionary experiences and encounters with spirit world entities.
Shamanic psychedelic medicine traditions emphasize the primacy of spirit world
visions and encounters with spiritual beings, using darkness and nighttime activ-
ities and an internal focus of attention to help precipitate visionary experiences.
Shamanistic contexts generally reduce c onversation or in teraction among
the group members during the ritual, instead focus on the individual’s internal
experiences guided by the shamans’ singing, chanting, and generally rattling or
drumming. Shamanic traditions may also emphasize a variety of other techniques
for inducing ASC, including preparation through fasting and isolation, often
alone in the wilderness. The psychedelic medicines are key to several aspects of
the spirit world perspectives characteristic of shamanic traditions, where the
plants themselves are viewed as spirit powers and teachers. The ASC emphasized
in shamanism engages one in a nonordinary reality (Harner 1982) and a variety of
interactions with spirit powers, including the experience of self as a spiritual
entity. These ASCs and spirits involve fundamental aspects of the structures of
human consciousness (Winkelman 2004b) that reflect activation of ancient struc-
tures of the brain, the animal powers of our unconscious (Winkelman 2000).
These structures and processes experienced as spirits provide important informa-
tion relevant to the dynamics of the individual and unconscious. These features
are explored in the following section in order to provide a broader context for
appreciating the potentials of shamanic traditions and applying them in modern
psychedelic therapy.
Shamanic Worldview
Shamanic practices are predicated on a fundamental animistic reality,
a world pervaded by a multiplicity of unseen but sensed spirit entities that
are causal agents underlying the variety of phenomena. In addition, shamanic
cosmology involved a variety or levels of the Universe, lower and upper worlds,
and a cosmos beyond the perceptions of ordinary reality. This cosmos was natural
as well as spiritual. In the shamanic worldview, a variety of spirits are active
and perceptible agents, incredible powers, and energies of nature that are sensed
in often terrifying proportions and transfer their influences between worlds.
The shamanic world engages the powers of animals and nature, realms of experi-
ence elicited in powerful ways by psychedelics. The world of animals plays a
148 PSYCHEDELIC MEDICINE: ADDICTIONS MEDICINE AND TRANSPERSONAL HEALING
central role in shamanic thought because they express and engage our innate
psychologies related to the natural classification of the animal world and our
“animal” brain structures (i.e., the R-complex reptilian brain and the paleomam-
malian brain; MacLean 1990; see below).
Hubbard (2002) points out that shamanism exploits a number of generic
structures and processes of human thought reflected in contemporary cognitive
science views of the world. Current connectionist models of semantic memory
reflect the shamanic “web of life” model that emphasizes the interconnectedness
and interdependence of all life forms and interrelations among species. Self-
awareness and psychological integration is enhanced by this view of complex
linkages among all aspects of the natural world, including humans and the per-
sonal self. Contact with nature enhances this view of interconnectedness with
nature and its connections with the structure of memory and other aspects of
cognition. Input from the environment has formed the structures of the neural
networks of our memory, making the structures of the natural world fundamental
to and isomorphic with the representations of vision and spatial perception. These
connections are enhanced by the psychedelics, reinforcing the experience of the
correctness of perceptions that emerge from the unconscious structures of the
world and brain into consciousness by virtue of their iconic similarity. In vision-
ary experiences, these images have implicit coding of information retrieved
from the unconscious and transferred to awareness. The access to natural world
structures provides a basis for information not ordinarily available to conscious-
ness, and may also produce a general heightened awareness by increased access
to various channels of phys ical information normally excluded because of
habituation. Image-based natural world structures provide access to evolutionarily
earlier structures of the brain and their learning and memory processes. The
psychological focus of shamanic ritual and the physiological integrative effects
of the psychointegrator effects of psychedelic medicines together produce power-
ful therapeutic effects by enhancing the expression of aspects of the unconscious.
Shamanic Uses of Psychedelic Medicines
The famed scholar of comparative religion Mircea Eliade (1964) popularized
a cross-cultural concept of the shaman. His early work denigrated the use of
psychedelic medicines in shamanistic traditions, practices which he considered
to reflect degraded forms rather than the true nature of shamanic practice (for
discussion, see Furst 1994). This perspective has been at odds with most of the
approaches within anthropology, characterized by La Barre’s (1972) view that
hallucinogenic plants were a fundamental source of religious inspiration in
general and shamanism in particular. Eliade’s early views were developed in a
context i n which the wid espread use of ha llucinogeni c plants amon g the
shamanic practices of the Americans was yet to be widely known. Eliade did
apparently modify his views later in life, recognizing the central role of psyche-
delic plants in shamanism.
SHAMANIC GUIDELINES FOR PSYCHEDELIC MEDICINE 149
The application of psychedelics in shamanism occurs in a number of differ-
ent contexts. While one might expect that healing or therapeutic actions are
primary, they may not be, and when use d for healing, they often present a
paradox to the western model. One of the frequently noted practices of shamanic
psychedelic medicine is the application of the medicine to the therapist rather
than the patient. While the patient may also be dosed, the shamanistic healer
also takes the medicine as a matter of ordinary practice. The use of psychedelic
medicines also has far broader applications as physical and social therapies.
PREMODERN USES OF PSYCHEDELIC MEDICINES
A basis for generalizations about the future directions of research on psyche-
delic medicines is provided by a review of the therapeutic uses of the major
families of hallucinogenic plants among the indigenous cultures of the Americas
(Schultes and Winkelman 1996). This included Strophariaceae (e.g., Psilocybe
spp. mushrooms), Myristicaceae (e.g., Virola snuffs), Leguminosae (e.g., Anade-
nanthera snuffs), Malpighiaceae (e.g., Banisteriopsis spp., the ayahuasca),
Cactaceae (e.g., Peyote—Lophophora williamsii and San Pedro—Trichocereus
spp.), and Convolvulaceae (e.g., Turbina corymbosa, the Morning Glory Family)
(also see Schultes and Hofmann 1979; Ra¨tsch 2005).
Ethnographic data illustrates a wide range of therapeutic application of these
diverse substances, with highly developed pharmacological and ritual healing
traditions selectively utilizing pharmacological variations across species and set
and setting factors to obtain a range of effects.
Psilocybe spp. are used for a variety of maladies, including both physical
illnesses (e.g., fever, chills, toothache, pimples, and pain) and spiritual illnesses
or culture-bound syndromes (e.g., hexes, soul/spirit loss, witchcraft, spirit afflic-
tions, and exorcism). Furthermore they are also used to address psychosocial
problems such as: resolving quarrels and disputes, finding lost family members
and domestic animals, and answering questions.
Virola is similarly used for both physical problems (stomach and bladder
problems, malarial fevers, intestinal worms, hemorrhoids, malaria, mouth sores,
in the treatment of rheumatism and swollen joints, cuts and wounds, child birth
problems, and for stimulating memory), as well as a variety of other psychocul-
tural ailments and social needs: diagnosis of diseases, treatment of witchcraft,
intervillage feasts, building and solidifying alliances, the practice of witchcraft,
and in funeral ceremonies. The snuffs have been noted to provoke a release of
the emotions and strains of everyday life, as well as stimulate antisocial behavior,
including personal violence and homicide.
Anadenanthera snuffs are used for a variety of medical, religious, and social
purposes. Its basic role in shamanistic healing practices involves diagnosis and
healing, as a purifier, and for invocation of spirits; in sorcery, it is used to induce
spirits to cause illness and misfortune to enemies. It heightens vision and alert-
ness in humans and animals. It is also used to induce courage, strength, and
150 PSYCHEDELIC MEDICINE: ADDICTIONS MEDICINE AND TRANSPERSONAL HEALING
stamina in hunting and battle, and for foretelling the future. Anadenanthera use in
social rituals includes annual harvest festivals, fertility rites, cremation ceremo-
nies and ancestor worship, festive gatherings, and mock intervillage battles.
Banisteriopsis is used in divinatory and healing ceremonies to acquire
protective spirits, to prophesize the future, to send messages to others or contact
distant relatives, to discover enemies’ plans, and for war or hunting expeditions.
It is used ritually to establish and maintain intervillages relations, to assist in
learning myths, art, chants, and dances, and for obtaining guidance in life. It is
also used to treat a range of culture-bound syndromes—susto (fear), causing the
loss of the person’s soul; dan˜o (harm), caused by sorcery, envy, or desire for
vengeance; and mal de ojo (evil eye). It is also used to treat dysfunctions in social
or sexual relations, emotional problems, vices, and psychological, somatic, and
physical problems and as a preventative against all sorts of diseases. In commu-
nal ritual, it is consumed by adult group members in psycho- and sociotherapeutic
treatments to deal with the problems of acculturation and to mediate between
cultu ral worlds in creating a synthesis to manage culture change through
symbolic confrontation.
Lophophora williamsii ( peyote) is c onsidered to have general healing
properties in cleansing the stomach, kidneys, liver, and blood. It is also used for
curing, protection against witches and ghosts, maintaining good health and mind,
incentives to work, release from guilt, temperance from alcohol, transcendence,
overcoming misfortunes, guidance and future good fortune, access to knowledge,
foretelling future occurrences, and motivation. In the NAC, it serves to give
purpose in life, internal peace and harmony, a reference group that meet needs
for approval and esteem, a validation of identity, and fosters adaptations to the
dominant society.
Trichocereus spp. are used to solve many different kinds of problems—
witchcraft and hexes, illness caused by resentment and envy, and imbalances of
the spiritual and natural forces in the patient’s life. The rituals serve as a means
for integrating the ancient ancestral traditions into current adaptations through
manipulation of aspects of the subconscious mind. Ritual processes transform
individual personality and social relations through symbolic mediation which
integrates psychological, social, and cosmological levels of meaning.
Turbina spp. are used for physical conditions such as fevers, carbuncles,
swollen or paralyzed limbs, rheumatic pains, and urinary retention or blockages.
It is employed as a contraceptive and to facilitate labor, particularly in cases of
difficult childbirth. It is also employed for divination of the causes of illness,
death, or other problems, and to determine the means of treatment, as well as
the location of objects. It is also used for ritual healing of witchcraft and other
conditions caused by fright and fear, evil eye, and anger. They are also used for
witchcraft and causing illness.
Summary: The premodern use of psychedelic medicines was applied for a
much wider range of conditions that contemporarily addressed within medicine
and psychotherapy. This brief review provides a glimpse of this broader range
SHAMANIC GUIDELINES FOR PSYCHEDELIC MEDICINE 151
of potential uses. Ethnographic research into these non-Western traditions can
still provide important insights into future applications. These suggest three
major contemporary applications of psychedelic medicines: in the training of
healers, in the diagnosis and treatment of disease, and in initiations and other
social rituals designed to produce social integration.
PSYCHEDELIC TRAINING
The use of psychedelic plants is a key aspect of the training of shamans in
many cultures, who may ingest such substances for weeks at a time over a period
of months or even years (Harner 1973; Luna 1986). These powerful doses are
viewed as vehicles into the world of spirits. A key conceptualization of psyche-
delic medicines involves their conceptualization as “teachers” and their use over
prolonged periods of time to induce profound encounters with them in the ASC.
This often involves repeated ingestion of large amounts of psychedelic plants
over days while maintaining a strict diet or complete fasting. These ASCs lasting
for days to weeks required that the initiates be under the supervision and care of
advanced shamans. Within the shamanic traditions, the experiences with these
plants are often viewed as initiatory processes that lead one to a higher level of
personal development and capacity. This access to a hidden knowledge about
the world, a metaphysical and transcendent realm of understanding, gave the
shaman a super human status in the community. The training of the Western psy-
chiatrist has been occasionally engaged, but has not yet led to the wholesale
development within psychedelic psychotherapy (Bravo and Grob 1989). Luna
(1986, 2006) describes the use of ayahuasca as a training device among what
are called the “vegetalista” traditions of Peru and other areas of the northern
Amazon region. The use of ayahuasca in training the vegatalistas emphasizes
long periods of isolation in the forest. Here under large doses of ayahuasca
one learns directly from the spirits. This learning is supervised by an older practi-
tioner in order to protect the novice during his journeys, especially from the
dangers faced from evil spirits and sorcerers.
DIAGNOSIS
One of the patterns of shamanic use of psychedelic medicine involves
the healer alone ingesting the medicines which are used to enhance diagnostic
skills and activate the healing powers and energies of the shaman. Shamanic
use of these plants are viewed as central to revealing the cause of the maladies
and the procedures for resolving them. Some of the common dynamics involved
in shamanic illness include recovery of a sense of one’s self or soul, removal
of an invading or possessing spiritual influence, and removal of some toxic
object or psychic energy implanted through sorcery. Shamanistic ayahuasca
activities may also include its consumption by the participants who observed a
strict fast and focused on their dream experiences during the night following
152 PSYCHEDELIC MEDICINE: ADDICTIONS MEDICINE AND TRANSPERSONAL HEALING
ingestion (Luna 2006). They continued their fast thr ougho ut the night in
the shelters in the forest where they had been led. After sleeping until the after-
noon, they bathed and met with the elders to report and learn about their dream
visions.
INITIATION AND GROUP INTEGRATION CEREMONIES
Another widely noted cross-cultural use of psychedelic plants is in the
context of initiation. Grob and Dobkin de Rios (1992) point to the cross-cultural
pattern of managed use of these substances in contexts where elders employ them
in resocialization rites. These often constitute collective puberty or initiation
rites which channel the individual in transition to adult status. In pre-Hispanic
societies, collective ayahuasca ceremonies were focused on life cycle stages such
as youth initiation rites and funerals, where ayahuasca was part of festivities
involving elaborate dancing and consumption of manioc beer and other substan-
ces such as coca and tobacco (Luna 2006). Ayahuasca was also part of the cleans-
ing ceremonies of v ictory feast that fol lowed successful he ad h unting
expeditions on neighboring enemies. Other important collective ayahuasca
ceremonies were reunions of the males of extended kinship groups (different
clans within a phratry) for parties that helped manage the relations among
the groups. Consumption of large amounts of manioc bear accompanied the
ayahuasca ceremonies. Its use during funerals is seen as facilitating the release
and transformation of their grief and anger, returning to joy by engaging in a
frenzied disorder through the ayahuasca. In some groups, ayahuasca ceremonies
in which only men consumed the ayahuasca were accompanied by a sexual orgy
that reflected the temporary dissolution of the social norms and the separations of
normal social life.
Shamanic Ritual Procedures
Shamanic use of psychedelic medicines reflects the broader principles of
shamanism involving the emphasis on a ritual context. Ritual is not an arbitrary
behavior but reflects the biogenetic adaptation of mammals to structured interac-
tions that provide important processes for individual and social coordination.
Ritual constitutes animals’ most important form of communication, a system
of behavioral signals that have the ability to integrate individuals into their roles
within coordinated groups. Among chimpanzees, group rituals of chanting,
drumming and “dancing” (aggressive charges) provide a context for the nightly
integration of dispersed daytime groups of the troop, a significant signaling
mechanisms and social integration process. Many of the universal features of
shamanic ritual in general have significant applications to the use of psychedelic
medicines because shamanism reflects adaptations to innate biological princi-
ples. These include drumming, singing, and chanting, and diet and sexual
abstinence.
SHAMANIC GUIDELINES FOR PSYCHEDELIC MEDICINE 153
DRUMMING, SINGING, AND CHANTING
Drumming and other percussion (especially rattling) is a universal of sha-
manism. The chanting of shamanism is a widespread mammalian vocalization
practice with deep evolutionary roots as an expressive communication mecha-
nism.
5
These musical procedures are invariably expanded in chanting and singing,
productions considered to have vital power in the shamanic world. These songs
such as the famous Amazonian icaros are considered to be sacred powers and
are often acquired by the shaman during the visionary experiences of shamanic
training. Within shamanic traditions, the songs are viewed as having powers that
elicit the potentials of the medicines and the powers of the spiritual world. These
songs are often learned from the spirits while under the experiences induced
by psychedelic medicines. Songs are viewed as key aspects of the divination
activities and the therapeutic processes, constituting key aspects of the ritual
healing processes that affect the participants’ visions and emotional experiences.
The songs evoke memories and have a variety of emotional effects on partici-
pants, creating a range of spirit world experiences and psychodynamic reactions.
DIETARY RESTRICTIONS
Diet is a special concern, and special restrictions on foods often precede the
use of psychedelic medicines for weeks. A variety of specific food restrictions
are common, as well as periods of prolonged fasting before and during the inges-
tion of psychedelic medicines, and special diets following the experiences. Con-
temporary ayahuasca traditions still tied to mestizo and indigenous traditions
stress the necessity of keeping a very strict diet during the process of learning from
the plants (Luna 1986). These dietary restrictions begin with periods as short as
several weeks to a few months and may extend for as long as several years.
Among the Amazonian ayahuasca traditions, the diet consists primarily of manioc
and rice, along with a small amount of fish and plantains (bananas). Salt, sugar,
and alcohol are prohibited and even fruits are generally not allowed. Similar
dietary restrictions may be imposed when preparing plant medicines and before
ceremonies. These dietary restrictions may seem foreign to the Western approach
but are important considerations. In general, a reduction of food consumption is
desirable prior to the use of these substances because foods may increase the
frequent experience of nausea, absorb the active ingredients ingested, and produce
a sense of “blockage” in the intestinal area. Shamanic traditions make it clear that
food restrictions ought to be basic principles incorporated into modern psyche-
delic psychotherapy. These special diets may also have effects that potentiate
the properties of psychedelic medicines (see Frecska’s chapter, Volume I).
SEXUAL ABSTINENCE
Sexual abstinence and other sex restrictions are central to the shamanic tradi-
tions, and the contemporary ayahuasca traditions as well. Luna reports that sexual
154 PSYCHEDELIC MEDICINE: ADDICTIONS MEDICINE AND TRANSPERSONAL HEALING
segregation and isolation in the forest was a typical requirement of training for
the ayahuasqueros. Cross-culturally shamans are also expected to be celibate
before and after their ceremonies, a restriction that may be imposed for years dur-
ing training. These lengthily periods of celibacy are explained in many traditions
in terms of purity and the idea that spirits are attracted to the celibate. There may
also be important physiological reasons that have to do with the physiological
dynamics of both sexual orgasm and ecstatic ASC (Davidson 1980). Sexual
activity requires a simultaneous increase in the activity of both the sympathetic
and the parasympathetic nervous system. When a peak of sexual excitation is
achieved, the sympathetic system collapses exhausted and the parasympathetic
state becomes dominant. Shamanism induces ASC with a similar pattern of exci-
tation to a collapse, and the psychedelics show a similar pattern of sympathetic
activation followed by a parasympathetic dominant state. Since the ASCs are
used as mechanisms for achieving contact with the spirit world, they are seen as
having great importance and their achievement must be protected. Sexual activity
would lead to a physiological release/collapse that could preclude the profound
parasympathetic collapse that typifies shamanic ASC. Sexual prohibitions can
be seen as functional in the context of the need to assure powerful ASCs. There
may also be a variety of erectile dysfunction effects and anorgasmic effects of
the various substances that would impair effective sexual performance. The inti-
macy that may be produced by the ego dissolution effects of these substances
may also dictate the importance of sexual abstinence in group settings in order
to avoid conflicts. Sexual prohibitions among participants and between clients
and therapists can provide important assurances that intimate contact will not
lead to expectations of sexual engagement.
SHAMANISM AND THE DREAM WORLD: PRESENTATIONAL SYMBOLISM
A key aspect of shamanic practice is the integration of dream cycles within
ritual activities. Shamanic rituals are typically overnight, where the incorporation
of ritual into the dream cycle is an inevitable outcome. Shamans may also engage
in dream incubation to integrate intentions into subsequent dream and visionary
experiences. Many shamanic cultures explicitly recognized their practices
as involving dreaming, reflected in the widespread concept of “Dream Time.”
Shamanic incorporation of the dream capacity engages several aspects of innate
mammalian capacities integrated within the visual symbolic processes of the
mind. The functional aspects of the dream capacity and its visual or presenta-
tional symbolism (Hunt 1995) help elaborate on the functional effects of psyche-
delic medicines. Shamanic visionary experiences engage the memory formation,
planning, and self representation capacities that involve the same symbolic
systems that underlie dreaming (Hunt 1995). Psychedelic medicines function as
one of the primary exogenous sources of engaging this natural capacity.
Dreaming constitutes a mammalian adaptation for learning by producing
memory associations during sleep by using the “off-line” frontal cortex for
SHAMANIC GUIDELINES FOR PSYCHEDELIC MEDICINE 155
information consolidation (Winson 1985). The universality of dreaming in mam-
mals indicates that this form of consciousness constituted a preadaptation for
uniquely human forms of consciousness (Brereton 2000). Dreams are closest
engagement of ego awareness with the operational structures of the unconscious-
ness (Laughlin et al. 1992), reflecting manifestations of an “unconscious person-
ality” (Winson 1985) that shamanism manages through ritual. Psychedelic
medicines powerfully engage these personality and information consolidation
processes.
Brereton (2000) characterizes dreams as a representation of self in emotion-
ally salient space, a process of “virtual scenario construction” that provides proc-
esses for risk-free construction and examination of personal options. This dream
capacity engages visual (re)presentations as part of a human adaptation to the
importance of social manipulation skills through using the ability to engage in
social intellectual play. This scenario building process provides an opportunity
for model construction related to issues of social relations and personal adapta-
tions, using this visual symbolic workspace for exploring the implications of
different scenarios. Dream research su ggests that a normal dream process
involves “replaying” of previous scenarios, emotionally marked memories
that have not been effectively resolved and incorporated into behavior patterns.
The nonverbal bodily based aspects of dreaming indicates its ability to connect
the body-self at a pre-egoic and prelinguistic level, engaging levels of symboliza-
tion that preceded egoic consciousness. This engages one of the aspects of
shamanic healing, emotional integration provided by the stimulation of the
paleomammalian brain. These processes are reflected in other chapters of these
volumes, especially Greer and Tolbert’s discussion of the emotional effects of
MDMA (methylenedioxymethamphetamine).
SHAMANIC FLIGHT
Psychedelic medicines engage a fundamental characteristic of the shamanic
spirit world encounter exemplified in the visionary experiences of a “journey”
in which one “travels” to spirit worlds. The shamanic soul journey or flight (also
referred to as out-of-body experience and astral projection) is manifested cross-
culturally and across diverse situations because it is based in innate structures
(Hunt 1995; Laughlin 1997). These experiences may occur spontaneously in near
death or clinical death experiences and among contemporary people who engage
in shamanistic practices (Harner 1982). Hunt (1995) has characterized these sha-
manistic experiences as based in an innate capacity he discusses as presentational
symbolism, an imagestic modality that is different from our representational
(word) symbolism. These experiences reflect symbolic structures of the nonver-
bal mind and provide connections with self, emotions, and repressed memories.
Soul flight is a symbolic representation of the shaman’s transcendence, with flight
reflecting the transformation through levels of consciousness. This concept is
reflected in the linguistic roots of “ecstasy,” from the Greek ekstasis, meaning
156 PSYCHEDELIC MEDICINE: ADDICTIONS MEDICINE AND TRANSPERSONAL HEALING
“to stand outside of oneself.” Not coincidentally one would suppose that Ecstasy
is the most widely know term for MDMA.
Why should the extreme power of shamanism and psychedelics be mani-
fested in an experience of out of a body? Body-based principles are the founda-
tion of all kn owing (Newton 1996) and a principal aspect of foundat ional
metaphors and analogic thinking (Friedrich 1991). Laughlin (1997) characterizes
the body image as a natural symbol system, a neurognostic model for organizing
both internal and external experiences that constitute a neurological foundation
for human experience. Body-based representational systems reflect patterns of
neural activity and body attributes, providing a natural symbolic system for all
levels of organization from metabolic levels through self-representation and
advanced conceptual functions (Laughlin 1997). Body images combine memory,
perception, affect, and cognition in an image-based symbolic information system
that Hunt (1995) refers to as “presentational” symbolism. This integration of vis-
ual images and bodily sensations reflects a capacity for metaphoric representation
across sensory modalities that is the foundation of symbolic thought (Hunt 1995).
This body-based foundation for knowledge is superse ded in the shamans’
out-of-body experience reflecting an elevation of consciousness. This aspect of
shamanic consciousness engages the human capacity to “take the role of the
other,” constructing a model of self derived from an externalized perceptions of
self, those from the recognition of the perspectives of the “other.”
These externalized self-representations provide new vehicles for self-
awareness and subjective experience in visual symbolism. This presentational
symbolism has a greater capacity than verbal-analytic activity, maximizing the
symbolic capacity in the imagistic-intuitive mode (Hunt 1995). This greater
capacity is expressed in the saying “A picture is worth a thousand words” and
in the rich levels of meaning that can be derived from a singe dream image.
The intense visual experiences and “mental imagery cultivation” (Noll 1985)
that are central to shamans’ ASC are natural phenomena of the central nervous
system that result from disinhibition in the regulation (suppression) of the
visual cortex. This visionary world has adaptive advantages, with these internal
images used for analysis, synthesis, diagnosis, future planning, and psychologi-
cal manipulations. Internal images reflect an innate cognitive capacity for pro-
ducing representations from the mind’s own materials and through its own
agency. Imagery employs a substrate of the visual system shared with perceptual
information (Baars 1997).
Imagery plays a role in cognition, integrating different domains of experi-
ence and levels of information processing. Mental imagery activates psycho-
physiological processes at the emotional levels, linking somatic and cognitive
experiences. Inner images are a form of biological communication reflecting
basic principles of neural organization and involving a preverbal symbol system
that acts directly on the physiological substrate outside of deliberation and con-
sciousness (Achterberg 1985). Images play a central role in muscular control,
representing goals, and recruiting and coordinating a wide range of unconscious
SHAMANIC GUIDELINES FOR PSYCHEDELIC MEDICINE 157
biological systems. Images also stimulate symp athetic activation and the
parasympathetic system’s relaxation response. “Imagery seems to be the only
conscious modality that can trigger autonomic process” (Baars 1997, p. 141).
Images can also change behaviors, exerting influences on the muscles and
autonomic nervous system, coordinating a wide range of unconscious systems
to achieve goals. Threatening images can evoke the fight or flight response
and stimulate the sympathetic system, while pleasant images can stimulate the
parasympathetic nervous system and evoke the relaxation response. Shamanic
transpersonal imagery uses universal symbols reflecting the collective uncon-
scious (or neurognostic structures, Laughlin et al. 1992; Laughlin 1997). Visions
link personal experiences with natural symbols of the cosmos, mind, and uncon-
scious, providing therapeutic mechanisms for manipulati on of the psyche
and body. The shamans’ visionary experiences engage this imagistic capacity,
eliciting neurologically based representations of the fundamental forces of life
and death, self and others, and the dynamics of emotional and social life.
Animism: Spirits as Self and Other
At the basis of shamanism is animism—the spirit world. Animism involves
attribution of humans’ intentional abilities and other cognitive and self qualities
to nonphysical entities and beings. These systems of meaning have structures
and functions that meet human psychological, social and biological needs
for concepts of self and socially referenced others (Winkelman 2004a,b). Spirits
reflect a personality model and fundamental aspects of consciousness of self and
others. Shamanism uses spirit constructs to represent personal, intrapsychic, and
social dynamics and management of emotions in the construction of relations
between self and others . Animistic agents manife sted in guardian spirit s
and “sacred others” reflect a natural social and relational epistemology derived
from social intelligence, the ability to infer the mental states of others. Animistic
concepts provide a natural symbolic framework for representation of the internal
psychodynamics of self and other social beings. Spirits represent aspects of
the person such as personal and social identity, self, i.d., ego, sup erego,
complexes, drives, social motivations, obsessions, and other psychodynamic
processes.
Psychological functions of spirit concepts are exemplified in the guardian
spirit complex (Swanson 1973). Spirits play a fundamental role in representing
social relations and their role in the formulation of the self. Spirit concepts pro-
vide symbolic representations of social groups and their norms, attitudes, values,
morals, purposes , motivat ions, goals, and relations. Ani mistic pr inciples
are “super persons” and “sacred other” (Pandian 1997) that provide models for
identity. This intersection of the spiritual and social worlds involves cultural
processes for production of the symbolic self through incorporation of “others.”
Spirit beliefs are projective systems that structure individual psychodynamics
and behavior. Spirit identities provide social and self-modules, alternate forms
158 PSYCHEDELIC MEDICINE: ADDICTIONS MEDICINE AND TRANSPERSONAL HEALING
of identity and reference for problem-solving and psychosocial adaptation
(Winkelman 2000, 2004b). Spirit concepts provide the self with command-
control agents that can respond to conflict by providing different selves to medi-
ate conflict within a hierarchy of social and personal goals. Shamanism constructs
and manipulates a variety of selves to produce personal, psychological, and social
integration. Animism, totemism, and guardian spirits are natural symbolic sys-
tems that differentiate and constitute the self in relationship to others. These
aspects of shamanism are often prominent in psychedelic experiences but are
not embraced as central aspects of the therapeutic process. The rationales for a
direct encounter with these entities and an incorporation of them into therapeutic
processes can be found at several levels: 1) animals can be seen as reflecting
lower brain processes, specifically those derived from the paleomammalian brain
and the R-complex (reptilian brain) (MacLean 1990); and 2) animal classification
systems are part of human innate evolved psychology (Mithen 1996), and can be
seen as reflecting unconscious psychodynamics and a natural metaphorical
system (Winkelman 2000). The biological model of shamanic ASC that sees
them as based in enhanced connections of the lower levels of the triune brain
involving enhanced connections between the paleomammalian brain and the
R-complex (reptilian brain) (Winkelman 2000). Consequently, animal concepts
are appropriate frameworks for expressing these aspects of our nature.
ANIMALS AS SPIRITS AND SELF
A central feature of shamanism involves relationships with animals as
guides, protectors, and allies that are to varying degrees controlled by the
shaman. Animal spirits are also key to formation of individual and communal
identity in totemism. Totemism involves a metaphoric relationship between
the natural history and the social domains, where humans and their groups are
attributed characteristics from the natural world (Levi-Strauss 1962). Totemism
represents human commonalities and differences through models provided by
animal species, which provide characterizations of social and personal identities.
Animal identifications also have important manifestations at the individual level
in the guardian spirit quest or vision quest (Swanson 1973). The vision quest
encounters with animal powers produce a personal relationship with a spirit as a
central aspect of developing personal skills and competencies, providing powers,
and assisting in personal and social choices for adult identity.
Totemism and animal spirit identities involve the metaphoric representation
of the self and social others within an innate intelligence referred to as the natural
history module. The innate capacity to produce taxonomical classification sche-
mas for the natural world, particularly animals, provides a template for meta-
phoric systems for creation of meaning. Humans have innate tendencies to
produce the same kinds of taxonomic classifications as found in the scientific
classification systems (i.e., Linnean). We also have a natural tendency to use
the characteristics of animals as a mechanism for differentiating the social and
SHAMANIC GUIDELINES FOR PSYCHEDELIC MEDICINE 159
natural world with a “natural psychology” for characterizing social and individ-
ual differences and aspects of the self.
Self Deconstruction and Construction
Central to psychotherapy of all sorts is the engagement with the transforma-
tion of some aspect of the self. Shamanic practices engage self-transformation
through a variety of different practices. Some of the central aspects of these
self-transformation processes emerge spontaneously [i.e., the animal identities
discussed above, as well as death-and-rebirth experiences (Walsh 1990)]. Other
aspects of this transformative process may depend more on the setting of inten-
tions to engage in certain experiences. The experience of flight to other worlds
may also emerge spontaneously; the shamanic paradigm offers a framework for
engaging these new perspectives in constructive ways.
THE SHAMAN’S INITIATORY CRISIS: DEATH AND REBIRTH
The fear of death and the experience of one’s own death are recurrent
features of the contemporary use of psychedelics, in spite of the fact that the risk
of actual death is nil. These encounters of images of one’s own death are central
to shamanic initiations, and developments are characterized by a “death and
rebirth” experience. Knowledge of these autonomous processes of the psyche
released by the psychedelics is an important part of preparing people for their
use. The shamanic model suggests that we prepare our clients to engage their
deaths rather than fearing and resisting them.
The shamanic death-and-rebirth experience is typified by visions of being
torn to pieces and devoured by animals or horrible monsters. These entities then
reconstruct the initiate with their powers imbued within the person’s body. These
indwelling spirits are considered the major source of the shamans’ ability to
prophesize, diagnose, heal, and perform other miraculous feats. Seeking of
the shamanic role is often motivated by a psychological crises characterized by
illness or insanity provoked by the spirits who have selected the individual to
be a shaman. Resisting this call is thought to run the risk of actual death, while
the initiatory experience generally leads the initiate to the experiences of their
personal death. The death-and-rebirth crisis typically involves a sequence of
events leading to an experience of bodily death and dismemberment at the hands
of the spirits, generally in animal form. They subsequently reconstruct the pieces
of the initiate, adding their powers to the reborn shaman.
These initiatory experiences have been characterized as involving neurosis,
psychosis, and hysteria. This is a misunderstanding, reflecting ethnocentric attri-
butions of pathology to ASC by using views of normalcy referenced to the ration-
ality of ordinary consciousness. These experiences are not schizophrenia or other
pathologies (Noll 1983), but do involve emotional turmoil and distress that may
entail a temporary crises resembling brief reactive psychosis (Walsh 1990; also
160 PSYCHEDELIC MEDICINE: ADDICTIONS MEDICINE AND TRANSPERSONAL HEALING
see Grof and Grof 1989). In some culture, shamanic initiatory experiences are
evaluated as pathological, but the general expectation is that they are the basis
for important personal developments.
The shaman’s death-and-rebirth initiatory crises involves natural symbolic
forms of self-reference and self-development. The death-and-rebirth phenomena
are manifested cross-culturally because they reflect natural processes of self trans-
formation that occur under conditions of overwhelming stress and the fragmenta-
tion of the ego that results from internal conflict (Walsh 1990). Dismemberment
experiences are “autosymbolic images” reflecting breakdown and disintegration
of one’s own psychological structures (Laughlin et al. 1992). The death-and-
rebirth cycle reflects a fragmentation and reformation of the self, processes of
psychological transformation that lead to destruction of the ego and its rebirth or
reformulation at higher levels of psychological reorganization, guided by innate
drives toward holism or integration. Shamanic development transforms the self,
producing a restructuring of identity promoted by holistic imperatives toward
psychointegration and the widely reputed exceptional health of shamans.
SHAMANIC JOURNEYING AND THE UNCONSCIOUS
The effects of psychedelic medicines of producing a profound internal orien-
tation and engagement with the imaginal world facilitate the use of shamanic
journeying to engage aspects of unconscious potentials. Shamanism engages the
holistic imperative, an inherent tendency for the organism to seek psychological
integration and growth (Laughlin et al. 1992). The journeying encounter with
spirit beings can provide surrogate entities for bonding experiences and personal
development. These ASC experiences allow for emergence of primary process
thinking in visual symbols which allow for manifestation of emotional and social
dynamics from pre-egoic levels where developmental blockages occurred.
This emergence provides content for the management of social and personal
attachments and emotions and the transfer from the unconscious into conscious-
ness, enhancing awareness of one’s own psychodynamics.
Visionary experiences are diagnostic, providing content and structure reflec-
tive of the client’s current needs for psychological growth. Visions manifest
repressed energies, unresolved conflicts, and development dynamics, often mani-
fested in archetypal images that Gagan considers particularly powerful tools they
link back into earlier trauma and forward into the next developmental stage. Jung
characterized shamanic images as archetypal motifs, natural symbols that enable
the unconscious to connect the individual’s natural or biological basis with devel-
opmental goals. The collective unconscious embodied in the spirit world provides
a matrix for engaging and releasing archetypal energies, transferring from the
unconscious to the conscious. Shamanic visionary activities provide mechanisms
for a reconnection with this archetypal ground. The psychotherapeutic processes
that incorporate these foundational shamanic images (archetypes) heal by con-
necting psyche with its ancient natural roots and energy for healing, producing a
SHAMANIC GUIDELINES FOR PSYCHEDELIC MEDICINE 161
sense of wholeness and connectedness. Gagan points out that journeying reveals
wisdom inherent in the unconscious, presenting information beyond the client’s
current level of development. The visionary revelations may be retained for later
processing as the clients’ psychological integration proceeds. The symbolic
emergence of unconscious material allows for individuation (producing a psycho-
logically whole and integrated consciousness) to occur outside of conscious
aware ness. Jou rneying a ccelerates devel opment by s ymbolic elevat ion of
this embedded material into personal consciousness where it can transform
self-awareness.
JOURNEYING AND POWER ANIMALS IN BONDING AND ATTACHMENT
DYNAMICS
Well-being is related to development of attachment. Gagan (1998) suggests
attachment development creates a false self that involves identifications to please
caretakers, producing dissociation from aspects of self they disapprove. This
begins a psychological abandonment of the true self that manifests later in life
in anger, frustration, and blockage of access to one’s own creative potentials.
Shamanic journeying can heal these developmental traumas and reestablish
contact with one’s true self. Power animals can nurture the traumatized self and
provide experiences of merging and unity with others. Journeying allows a
reframing of early traumas, particularly those that are still dissociated. Animal
powers can provide help in managing these traumas and reactivating lost poten-
tials. Journey time spent with power animals provides a context for feeling safe.
Power animals encountered in shamanic journeying may be recovered as manifes-
tations of “lost souls,” dissociated aspects of self or those deeply embedded in the
unconscious. Incorporating power animals can provide healing through their inte-
gration into the self, bringing qualities and characteristics that help address short-
comings, particularly deficits in personality development. The shamans’ ability to
transform into an animal has been applied to personal transformation by Perkins
(1997) as a process of “shapeshifting.” Shapeshifting is concerned with changing
into the self that we want to be, producing a paradigm shift in our personal and
social nature. These include changes in our attitudes and behaviors, our percep-
tions and appearance, and our health and personal relationships. Perkins charac-
terizes shapeshifting as focusing personal energy (or spirit) and intent to achieve
our goals. Shapeshifting engages the capacity for dreaming and our personal
intent to change thought patterns to alter affect, attitudes, character, and action;
psychedelic medicines are well-suited to enhance these processes.
CONCLUSIONS: MODERN SHAMANISTIC PSYCHEDELIC
MEDICINE TRADITIONS
Metzner (1998) points to the significant differences in the use of psychedelic
medicines withi n the non-Western t ra di tions in contrast t o th e Western
162 PSYCHEDELIC MEDICINE: ADDICTIONS MEDICINE AND TRANSPERSONAL HEALING
adaptations in psycholytic and psychedelic therapies; these have been empha-
sized above. He also points to similarities in modern psychiatric uses of psyche-
delic medicines and commonalities with shamanic traditions in the induction
of profound ASC that provides the experience of a transcendent reality; the use
of a skilled guide or therapist to direct the set and setting—the circumstances,
expectations, and intentions that guide the therapeutic processing of the experien-
ces; and the “amplifier analogy,” nonspecific psychedelic drug effects that
enhance the significant underlying emotional dynamics of the person and situa-
tion (Metzner 1998).
Adoption of some aspects of the shamanic traditions of the psychedelic
medicines is illustrated in what Metzner calls hybrid therapeutic-shamanic rituals
which blend understandings of indigenous shamanic practices with the Western
psychotherapeutic approaches. These approaches include a number of elements
he views as traditional to shamanic healing such as participants sitting or reclin-
ing in a circle; a central area of an altar or fire or other ritual focus; the preference
for nighttime and low light activities; the guidance by an elder and other assis-
tance; the invocation of spiritual powers from fundamental directions as guidance
for the activities; the focus on constructing the appropriate set and setting,
typified in having clear intentions for the divinatory and therapeutic encounter;
the use of music, drumming, chanting, and a variety of percussive instruments
such as rattles; engaging in a variety of mental psychospiritual practices such as
meditation, body awareness, focused attention, and other processes designed to
enhance therapeutic insights.
These shamanic principles are also manifested in what can be called “Neo-
shamanic Ayahuasca Traditions.” The therapeutic applications of shamanic prin-
ciples enhanced by ayahuasca have been manifested in the development of an
international tourism, what some (Dobkin de Rios 1994) have critiqued as “drug
tourism.” North Americans and Europeans, educated about the potentials of aya-
huasca, seek out these sessions in the international marketplace for ayahuasca
ceremonies, particularly in South America. The ayahuasca purveyors, primarily
in Peru but also through other Amazonian countries, engage an internal clientele
who seek of the legendary powers of ayahuasca. In a study based on interviews
with some of these so-called “drug tourists,” Winkelman (2005) discovers people
in search of the kinds of powerful personal and spiritual healing that ayahuasca
can provoke. Contrary to the search for hedonistic highs implied by the charac-
terization as “drug tourists,” their principal motivations are characterized by
seeking spiritual relations and personal spiritual development; various forms of
emotional healing, particularly unresolved traumas; and the development of per-
sonal self-awareness, including some sense of direct contact with a sacred nature,
God, spirits, and plant and natural energies produced by the ayahuasca. Their
motiv ations for their j ourneys and the perceived benefit s that they report
obtaining both point to transpersonal concerns. The principal perceived benefits
involve increased self awareness, personal insights, and access to deeper levels
of the self that enhanced personal development and expressions of the higher self,
SHAMANIC GUIDELINES FOR PSYCHEDELIC MEDICINE 163
providing personal direction in life (Winkelman 2005). Based on his use of
ayahuasca among many of these seekers, Luna (2006) characterizes the use of
ayahuasca as engaging an “other,” a plant teacher. This provides a cognitive
potential, a tool for engaging an “existential intelligence” that provokes a height-
ened capacity for awareness of grand cosmological dimensions of the human
condition. This increased awareness of cosmological issues and mysteries of
human nature engages us with some of the central questions that have perennially
occupied the deepest thought of humans who have come to profoundly contem-
plate the human condition and our understanding of reality.
However, it is generally the case that the modern practices have yet to fully
engage the shamanic dynamic. The biological bases of shamanism suggests that
the classic features of shamanism such as social isolation and vision questing,
diet and sexual abstinence, animal powers and identities, dream incorporation,
personal identification with nature, and the death-and-rebirth experience can pro-
vide important additions to help achieve a “best uses” approach to psychedelic
medicine.
NOTES
Thanks to Pat Savant and Tom Roberts for their comments on this manuscript.
1. The presence of hallucinogenic plants in shamanism is wi dely documented.
For example, see Dobkin de Rios (1984), Furst (1972, 1976), Harner (1973), and Ra¨tsch
(2005).
2. For coverage of the Brazilian Ayahuasca Religions, see Labate and Araujo (2002)
and Labate and Goulart (2005). The Huic hol pilgrimage has been chara cterized by
Myeroff (1974, 1975), Schaefer and Furst (1996), and Schaefer (2005).
3. Ibid.
4. This sec tion “The Peyote Religion a s “Pr iestly” Healing ” is adopted from
Winkelman (2006); also see Aberle (1966).
5. For the general evolutionary roots of music, see Wallin et al. (2000). Freeman
(2000) examines th e neurobiological roles of musi c in social bonding, and Merker
(2000) examines the role of synchronous chorusing in human origins (also see Molino
2000).
REFERENCES
Aberle, D. 1966. The peyote religion among the Navaho. Chicago: Aldine Pub.
Achterberg, J. 1985. Imagery in healing: Shamanism and modern medicine. Boston:
New Science Library: Shambhala.
Andritzky, W. 1989. Sociopsychotherapeutic functions of ayahuasca healing in Amazonia.
Journal of Psychoactive Drugs 21 (1):77–89.
Baars, B. 1997. In the theater of consciousness. New York: Oxford University Press.
Bravo, G., and C. Grob. 1989. Shamans, sacraments and psychiatrists. Journal of Psycho-
active Drugs 21 (1):123–8.
164 PSYCHEDELIC MEDICINE: ADDICTIONS MEDICINE AND TRANSPERSONAL HEALING
Brereton, D. 2000. Dreaming, adaptation, and consciousness: The social mapping hypoth-
esis. Ethos 28 (3):379–409.
Clottes, J., and D. Lewis-Williams. 1998. The shamans of prehistory: Trance and magic in
the painted caves. New York: Harry Abrams.
Davidson, R. 1980. The psychobiology of sexual experience. In The psychobiology of
consciousness, ed. J. Davidson and R. Davidson, New York: Plenum Press.
Dobkin de Rios, M. 1984. Hallucinogens: Cross-cultural perspectives. Albuquerque:
Univ. New Mexico Press.
Dobkin de Rios, M. 1994. Drug tourism in the Amazon. Anthropology of Consciousness
5 (1):16–19.
Eliade, M. 1 964. Shama nism archa ic techniq ues of ecsta sy. New York: Pan theon
Books.
Freeman, W. 2000. A neurobiological role of music in social bonding. In The origins of
music, ed. N. Wallin, B. Merker, and S. Brown, 411–24. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Friedrich, P. 1991. Polytrophy. In Beyond metaphor: The theory of tropes in anthropology,
ed. J.W. Fernandez, 17–55. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Furst, P., ed. 1972. Flesh of the gods. New York: Praeger.
Furst, P., ed. 1976. Hallucinogens and culture. San Francisco: Chandler and Sharp.
Furst, P., 1994. Shamanism: An introduction. In Ancient traditions: Shamanism in central
Asia and the Americas, ed. G. Seaman and J. Day. Niwot, CO: University Press of
Colorado and Denver Museum of Natural History.
Gagan, J. 1998. Journeying where shamanism and psychology meet. Santa Fe: Rio Chama
Publications.
Grob, C., and M. Dobkin de Rios. 1992. Adolescent drug use in cross-cultural perspective.
Journal of Drug Issues 22 (1):121–38.
Grof, S., and C. Grof. 1989. Spiritual emergency: When personal transformation becomes
a crises. New York: G. P. Putnam.
Harner, M., ed. 1973. Hallucinogens and shamanism. New York: Oxford University Press.
Harner, M. 1982. The way of the shaman. New York: Bantam.
Hubbard, T. 2002. Some correspondences and similarities of shamanism and cognitive
science: Interconnectedness, extension of meaning and attribution of mental states.
Anthropology of Consciousness 13 (2):26–45.
Hunt, H. 1995. On the nature of consciousness. New Haven and London: Yale University
Press.
La Barre, W. 1972. Hallucinogens and the shamanic origins of religion. In Flesh of the
gods, ed. P. Furst, 261–78. New York: Praeger.
Labate, B., and W. Araujo. 2002. O uso ritual da ayahuasca. Campinas, Brazil: Mercado
de Letras Edicoes e Livraria.
Labate, B., and S. Goulart, eds. 2005. O uso ritual das plantas de poder. Campinas, Brazil:
Mercado de Letras Edicoes e Livraria.
Laughlin, C. 1997. Body, brain, and behavior: The neuroanthropology of the body image.
Anthropology of Consciousness 8 (2–3), 49–68.
Laughlin, C., J. McManus, and E. d’Aquili. 1992. Brain, symbol and experience toward a
neurophenomenology of consciousness. Boston and Shaftesbury: Shambhala. Repr.
Columbia University Press.
Levi-Strauss, C. 1962. Totemism. Boston: Beacon.
Lewis-Williams, D. 1997. Harnessing the brain: Visions and shamanism in upper Paleo-
lithic western Europe. In Beyond art: Pleistocene image and symbol, ed. M. Conkey,
SHAMANIC GUIDELINES FOR PSYCHEDELIC MEDICINE 165
O. Sof fer, D. Stratmann, and N. Jablonski, 321–42. California: Memoirs of the
California Academy of Sciences, 23.
Luna, L.E. 1986. Vegetalismo shamanism among the mestizo population of the Peruvian
Amazon. Stockholm Studies in Comparative Religion #27. Stockholm: Almqvist
and Wiksell International.
Luna, L.E. 2006. Traditional and syncretic Ayahuasca rituals. In Rituale erneuern. Ritual-
dynamik und Grenzerfahrung in interdisziplina
¨rer Perspektive, ed. H. Jungaberle,
R. Verres, and F. DuBois, 319–37. Gießen: Psychosozial Verlag.
MacLean, P. 1990. The triune brain in evolution. New York: Plenum.
McKenna, T. 1992. Food of the gods: The search for the original tree of knowledge
A radic al h istor y of plants, drugs a nd human ev oluti on. New Yor k: Bant am
Books.
Merker, B. 2000. Synchronous chorusing and human origins. In The origins of music,
ed. N. Wallin, B. Merker, and S. Brown, 315–27. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Metzner, R. 1998. Hallucinogenic drugs and plants in psychotherapy and shamanism.
Journal of Psychoactive Drugs 30 (4):333–41.
Mithen, S. 1996. The prehistory of the mind: A search for the origins of art, religion and
science. London: Thames and Hudson.
Molino, J. 2000. Toward an evolutionary theory of music. In The origins of music,
ed. N. Wallin, B. Merker, and S. Brown, 165–76. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Myerhoff, B. 1974. Peyote hunt: The sacred journey of the Huichol Indians. Ithaca,
NY: Cornell University Press.
Myerhoff, B. 1975. The deer-maize-peyote complex among the Huichol Indians of Mexico.
Ann Arbor, MI: University Microfilms.
Newton, N. 1996. Foundations of understanding. Philadelphia: John Benjamin’s Publish-
ing Co.
Noll, R. 1983. Shamanism and schizophrenia: A state-specific approach to the schizophre-
nia metaphor of shamanic states. American Ethnologist 10 (3):443–59.
Noll, R. 1985. Mental imagery cultivation as a cultural phenomenon: The role of visions in
shamanism. Current Anthropology 26:443–51.
Pandian, J. 1997. The sacred integration of the cultural self: An anthropological approach
to the study of religion. In Anthropology of religion, ed. S. Glazier. Westport :
Greenwood Press.
Perkins, J. 1997. Shapeshifting shamanic techniques for global and personal transforma-
tion. Rochester, VT: Destiny Books.
Ra¨tsch, C. 2005. The e ncyclopedia of psychoactive plants: Et hnopharmacology and
its applications, trans. J. R. Baker. Rochester, VT: Park Street Press. Originally
published in 1998. Enzyklopa¨die der psychoaktiven Pflanzen. Aarau, Switzerland:
AT Verlag.
Ruck, C., J. Bigwood, B. Staples, J. Ott, and R. Wasson. 1979. Entheogens. Journal of
Psychoactive Drugs 11 (1–2 Jan–June), 145–6.
Ryan, R. 1999. The strong eye of shamanism: A journey into the caves of consciousness.
Rochester: Inner Traditions.
Seaman, G., and J. Day, eds. 1994. Ancient traditions: Shamanism in central Asia and the
Americas. Niwot, CO: University Press of Colorado.
Schaefer, S. 2005. Plants and healing on the Wixarika (Huichol) peyote pilgrimage.
In Pilgrimage and healing, ed. J. Dubisch and M. Winkelman, 179–202. Tucson:
University of Arizona Press.
166 PSYCHEDELIC MEDICINE: ADDICTIONS MEDICINE AND TRANSPERSONAL HEALING
Schaefer, S., and Furst, P. 1996. People of the peyote: Huichol Indian history, religion, &
survival. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico.
Schultes, R., and A. Hofmann. 1979. Plants of the gods. New York: McGraw Hill. Repr.
Rochester, VT: Healing Arts Press, 1992.
Schultes, R., and M. Winkelman. 1996. The principal American hallucinogenic plants and
their bioactive and therapeutic properties. In Sacred plants, consciousness and heal-
ing. Yearbook of cross-cultural medicine and psychotherapy, ed. M. Winkelman
and W. Andritzky, 205–39. Berlin: VWB-Verlag.
Swanson, G. 1973. The search for a guardian spirit: A process of empowerment in simpler
societies. Ethnology 12:359–78.
Wallace, A. 1966. Religion: An anthropological view. New York: Random House.
Wallin, N., B. Merker, and S. Brown, eds. 2000. The origins of music. Cambridge: MIT
Press.
Walsh, R. 1990. The spirit of shamanism. Los Angeles: Tarcher.
Wasson, G., A. Hoffman, and C. Ruck. 1978. The road to Eleusis. New York: Harcourt
Brace and Jovanavich.
Wiedman, D. 1990. Big and little moon peyotism as health care delivery systems. Medical
Anthropology 12:371–87.
Winkelman, M. 1986a. Magico-religious practitioner types and socioeconomic conditions.
Behavior Science Research 20 (1–4):17–46.
Winkelman, M. 1990. Shaman and other ‘magico-religious’ healers: A cross-cultural study
of their origins, nature and social transformations. Ethos 18(3):308–52.
Winkelman, M. 1992. Shamans, priests and witches: A cross-cultural study of magico-
religious practitioners. Anthropological Research Papers No. 44. Tempe: Arizona
State University.
Winkelman, M. 1996. Psychointegrator plants: Their roles in human culture and health. In
Sacred plants, consciousness and healing. Yearbook of cross-cultural medicine and
psychotheraphy, ed. M. Winkelman and W. Andritzky, 9–53. Berlin: VWB-Verlag.
Winkelman, M. 2000. Shamanism the neural ecology of consciousness and healing. West-
port: Bergin and Garvey.
Winkelman, M. 2001. Psychointegrators: Multidisciplinary perspectives on the therapeutic
effects of hallucinogens. Complementary Health Practice Review 6 (3):219–37.
Winkelman, M. 2002a. Shamanism and cognitive evolution. Cambridge Archaeological
Journal 12 (1):71–101.
Winkelman, M. 2002b. Shamani sm as neurotheology and evolutio nary psychology.
American Behavioral Scientist 45 (12):1875–87.
Winkelman, M. 2003. Ps ychointegr ation: The physiological effects of ent heogens.
Entheos 2 (1):51–61.
Winkelman, M. 2004a. Shamanism as the original neurotheology. Zygon Journal of
Religion and Science 39 (1):193–217.
Winkelman, M. 2004b. Spirits as h uman nature and the fundamen tal s tructures of
consciousness. In From shaman to scientist essays on humanity’s search for spirits,
ed. J. Houran, 59–96. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press.
Winkelman, M. 2005. Drug tourism or spiritual healing? Ayahuasca seekers in Amazonia.
Journal of Psychoactive Drugs 37 (2):209–18.
Winkelman, M. 2006. American ethnic streams. Dubuque: Kendall Hunt.
Winson, J. 1985. Brain and psyche: The biology of the unconscious. Garden City: Anchor
Press/Doubleday.
SHAMANIC GUIDELINES FOR PSYCHEDELIC MEDICINE 167
