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Religion, Brain & Behavior
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Mimesis and the origins of religion
Michael James Winkelman
To cite this article: Michael James Winkelman (2023): Mimesis and the origins of religion,
Religion, Brain & Behavior, DOI: 10.1080/2153599X.2023.2168736
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/2153599X.2023.2168736
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Mimesis and the origins of religion
Michael Winkelman
School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University, Tempe, Az. (Retired)
email: michaeljwinkelman@gmail.com
Dunbar emphasizes distinctions between shamanic and doctrinal religions, noting the importance
of shamanism for identifying ancient religious features and adaptations. Dunbar proposes
religious evolution began with shamanic practices that engage the endogenous opioid system
(EOS, endorphins) to enhance social bonding. Doctrinal religions based on higher order
mentalizing skills provided a capacity to socially engage a transcendental world but did not
replace shamanism which persisted in modified forms. Dunbar notes shamanic universals reflect
psychobiological structures but doesn’t provide an empirical framework for characterizing these
features or assessing their evolved bases (i.e., Winkelman 1990, 2010a&b, 2021, 2022). This
precludes understanding the deep evolutionary origins of religion.
Bonding in primate groups is based on dyadic grooming relationships which stimulate the EOS,
producing feelings of happiness, security, belonging and trust. Larger groups are adaptative for
protection but limited by grooming time. Dunbar proposes that humans exceeded these limits by
using religion for bonding larger communities and evolving other mechanisms, particularly
singing, dancing, ritual and story-telling, for triggering the EOS. Shamanism evolved from these
adaptations that stimulated the EOS and other neural systems (Winkelman 2015, 2017b, 2019a).
Doctrinal religions coopted shamanisms’ singing, dancing and other synchronized behaviors that
stimulated the EOS to create community and prosocial dispositions (Tarr et al. 2014, 2016).
Dunbar proposes that doctrinal religion extends EOS-mediated bonding processes through
mentalization processes that stimulate the EOS and provide thoughts necessary for sharing the
doctrinal concepts underpinning religion. Dunbar proposes that capacities of mentalizing are key
to religion, requiring a fifth level of intentionality—“I believe that you think that we both know
that God exists and intends to punish us” (p.119). “[O]nly with this order intentionally is it
possible to formulate a proposition about God’s intentional status that we both can sign up to
(communal religion)” (p120). Religion, according to Dunbar, requires capacities for language
that enable 5th order intentionality, not just the ability to imagine parallel universes (first order),
the intentions of beings there (second order), infer others share those beliefs (third order) and
even share their experiences (fourth order). Dunbar repeats assertions of others on origins of
religion, insisting ”we cannot have religion without language” (p.164) based on the notion that
without linguistic exchanges, theological ideas or meaningful rituals could not have existed even
if one had personal spiritual experiences. Dunbar (p.174) notes they “could surely have told each
other about what they had experienced during trance...[but] would have been [un]able to
elaborate any meaningful theory about what it all meant”.
Dunbar estimates timeframes for evolution of religious capacities with data on relationships of
mentalizing abilities to cranial volume among primates and concludes that only modern Homo
sapiens had sufficient brains to support language and fifth order intentionality. Dunbar proposes
archaic humans (Homo heidelbergensis and Homo neanderthalensis) had capacities for personal
religious experiences, some kind of language, and fourth order intentionality, but could not have
had communal religion, being incapable of elaborating meaningful theories about them,
communicate such ideas or determine that others concurred with their beliefs.
Dunbar relies on archaeological evidence and inferences based on primate abilities and brain size
to make inferences regarding past religious behavior, while an approach based upon evolution of
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the ritual capacity, particularly mimesis, provides more substantial bases for inferring origins of
religion and capacities for higher order intentionality. Dunbar notes bonding is important
because it enhances group living and mentions charismatic leadership in evolution of religious
systems from a natural psychology of community leaders functioning as a focus for community
bonding. But he overlooks significant ways humans and other primates bond in charismatic
rituals such as extravagant displays that provide a deeper understanding of the origins of religion
and evolution of the symbolic capacity.
Archaic origins of religion as conspicuous displays
Deep origins of religion involve primate ritualizations, especially conspicuous displays,
exemplified in chimpanzee maximal displays. These aggressive bipedal charges involving
shaking branches, foot and hand drumming and emotional vocalization are widespread ape
behaviors (Lawick-Goodall, 1968; Goodall 1986; Arcadi, Robert, and Boesch, 1998; Reynolds
and Reynolds 1965). These mechanisms of group integration of dispersed foraging groups
provide multi-functional adaptations (Winkelman 2009, 2010a&c), including a primate
spirituality (Goodall, 2005):
Auditory beacon for group re-integration at a common location and inter-troop spacing;
Affirmation of group hierarchy, reducing aggression and physical harm;
Release tension and produce group emotional synchrony with drumming and vocalization;
Expression of group identity in emulation of alpha male call and drumming style.
The ancient religious origin in this night-time reunification processes involving bipedal displays,
group drumming and vocalization is illustrated by these homologies with shamanic ritual
(Winkelman 2009, 2010c 2019a). This multifunctional social dynamic emerged from selective
pressures for expansions of song, rhythm and synchrony in collective rituals that enhance group
solidarity (Rossano 2009a, 2011, 2012, 2015). Drumming exemplifies costly manifestations, a
widespread mammalian display mechanism that provides inter- and intra-species signaling of
vigilance, fitness, competitiveness and readiness to act (Randall 2001). The significance of costly
displays in evolution is in their ability to enhance success in inter-group competition through
contributing to stronger group commitments, increased within-group cooperation and enhanced
prosocial behavior because they evidence high levels of group commitment through extensive
energy expenditures (Henrich 2009). Selection for an expanded hominin drumming capacity
likely also reflects direct effects on survival mediated by its ability to deter predators (?*Rossano
2015).
Mimesis and shamanic evolution
The behavioral enactments of chimpanzee ritualizations expanded across hominin evolution in
expressive capacities of mimesis (Winkelman 2009, 2010a, 2015, 2019a). This conscious
enactment that maps body actions onto physical, social and imagined contexts uses the body’s
ability to act out meanings to communicate. This symbolic communication exemplified in
gestures, facial expressions, affective semantics, play, drama, ceremonies and ritual emerged 1-2
million years ago (Donald, 1991). This multimodal capacity enables the body to entrain
movements with others, underlying multiple expressive capacities--mime, gesture, imitation,
pantomime, music, song, dance and emotional expressions (Donald 2006). This innate capacity
for communication through the body provided a pre-language expressive system for early
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hominins, an ability to intentionally represent mental states and intentions expressed by the body
that generates information through movement, actions and relations.
Girard (1977, 1987) proposed mimesis had extensive implications for the evolution of culture
and religion, enhancing human capacities for expression to represent through enactment and an
archaic level of culture. Dramatic expressive manifestations of dance, music and ritual provided
distributed cognition and the basis for the evolution of the symbolic human mind into what
Donald (1991) called mimetic culture and mythic culture. Shamanism exploited this mimetic
capacity through ritualized mime, dancing, singing and vocal imitation (Winkelman 2010a,
2019a). The shaman’s enactment of the journey to spirit worlds and relations with spirit entities
exploit symbolic capacities of mimesis through dramatic enactment in bodily movements,
combined with emotional expressions and animal imitation.
Mimesis as body metaphor
Klein (2003) proposes threefold functions of mimesis-- imitation, representation and
construction—mediating inner experiences with the external worlds in the symbolic construction
of shared reality. This construction of the ‘inner world’ is a symbolic world based on memories
of behavior, the actions that produce experiences used for symbolic constructions of both
external and internal reality. This generativity of the body provides the instrument for
expression of cultural norms, practical knowledge and beliefs, intentionally communicating
through behavior and providing a medium for sharing internal models, knowledge and
experiences.
Mimesis produces symbols and meaning through enactment metaphors, mapping onto an
imagined reality through inferences made regarding intentions and understandings expressed in
actions. Mimesis can present metaphor through intrinsic meanings of actions, reenactments of
events, and expressions based on an analogy derived from relationships among the body’s
movements patterns. Mimesis uses the body as a general expressive medium for communicating
to others information about our inner states, past experiences as well as future plans. Mimesis
provides conscious production of meaning through mapping of body actions onto an imagined
context invoked by the body’s depictions, analogical transference that exploits the body’s innate
schemas and templates for knowing (see Winkelman 2010a for discussion).
Mirror neurons
Mimetic processes are based in the activity of mirror neurons, brain cells activated by
performance a specific intentional and goal directed behavior, as well as when one observes a
conspecific engaging in that same specific intentional movement (see Garrels 2001, 2005).
Mirror neurons function as both motor and sensory neurons, reflecting a common neural basis
for both performance and understanding of observed behaviors of others. This common basis for
action and perception creates a shared experience for actor and observer through neurologically
mediated responses of mirror neurons. Activation of mirror neurons provides an automatic and
unconscious capacity to understand others, an intentional attunement with the internal states of
the observer with the observed. This produces a sense of connectedness to the other, an empathy
through simulation of the experience of others’ motor and affective states (Wilson 2009),
providing a basis for intuitive understandings of the intentions of others’ goal-directed actions.
This capacity provides a system of shared meaning at foundations of social consciousness long
before development of spoken language, providing interpersonal communication processes and
understandings fundamental to human culture.
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Imitation and mirror neurons provide the basis for the identity of self with others and more
complex forms of social cognition regarding the minds of others (Garrels 2005). Because of
common neuronal pathways activated by engaging, observing and even imagining a specific
action, mimesis provide a direct means for communication of internal mental states and their
meaning.
Mimetic theories of religion
Girard (1977, 1987) examined the implications of the mimetic capacity for origins of religion
and the roles of this capacity in ritual behaviors (see Garrels 2005; (Antonello & Gifford
2015a&b). Imitation was a basis for primordial human evolution and cultural development
through patterning of social relations. Girard proposed that religion emerged as a solution to the
devastating problems produced by our mimetic propensity and its contribution to intense
competition and ubiquitous rivalry that resulted in contagious and deadly violence in human
groups. The origins of culture and religion is within this dynamic of the mimetic crisis and
contagious enactment, derived from this formidable force of enactment (Brown, Slyke, and
Garrels 2015).
Our ancient hominin ancestors used maximal displays for their functions of dominance threat
and submissive acceptance to symbolically manipulate and hence to magically conjure the life
transcending forces of feeling safe in accepting the dominant other in submissiveness while
simultaneously incorporating the power of the dominant through the processes of mimetic
introjection. Maximal displays mitigate violence, reducing in-group aggression through
dominance-submission interactions and promoting social harmony through multiple
synchronization and endorphin mechanisms.
These common ape behaviors were the basis of our hominin collective rituality and the bases for
the evolution of shamanism (Winkelman 2009, 2010a, 2019a). Ritual behaviors were able to
enhance social integration because of their intrinsic ability to inhibit innate aggressive tendencies
and defensive behaviors, producing interpersonal conditions that facilitate social bonding
(Rossano 2009a&b, 2011). The inhibition provides fitness advantages, enhancing social bonding
mechanisms and providing psychophysiological benefits from eliciting EOS healing responses.
Rossano notes central public features of pre-modern societies involved ritualized expression of
dangerous emotions that must be controlled through processes that inhibit mimetic emotional
response. Successful ritual participation requires inhibition of pre-potent emotional responses,
especially anger, aggression and defensiveness in order for ritual processes to expand feelings of
trust that enable formation of alliances that enhanced survival.
Brown, Slyke, and Garrels (2015) propose the mimetic origins of religion in forces that emerge
outside of the person, within interpersonal engagements with social and cultural systems. All
thinking and belief emerge from the individual’s inescapable enmeshment with the environment,
especially social systems and cultural artifacts that always contextually situate our cognitive
processes within the models they represent. What produces religious thought and makes human
cognition special is not specifically our enhanced neural hardware but how cognition is situated
and embodied in organizations produced by a history of interactions within the social
environment and its physical artifacts. The embedded social processes facilitating interpersonal
interactions lead to new capacities that emerge through a process producing higher levels of self-
and social- organization that depend on but are not derived from brain systems or acquired
cognitive mechanisms but a higher level of social organization (and integration).
Mimesis enhanced personal and social consciousness by providing a mechanism for sharing the
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representations produced within our own brain and operating in other brains. The mimetic
capacities of music and dancing provided technologies that enhanced group formation and
awareness by behavioral communication, enhancing social cooperation with coordinated
rhythmically repeated motions exemplified in dance. This innate capacity to communicate
through imitating and behavioral enactment stimulated evolution of complex representational
processes. enhancing interpretation of complex social situations. This involved attributing
meaning to actors’ behaviors, inferring mental states and intentions and beliefs based on
knowledge of heir and one’s own immediate and past experiences. The cultural context that
shaped these interpretations provided meaning to human actions in providing the context for the
interpretation of the interpersonal, cosmological and spiritual beliefs they expressed.
Mimetic culture
Does this mimetic capacity convey the kinds of supernatural meanings and agreements that
Dunbar see as essential to qualifying as religion?
Drumming, dancing and music are psychotechnologies eliciting the EOS and healing responses
which also produce extraordinary ASC universally interpreted as spiritual (Winkelman 2011).
The recurrent nature of these experiences reflects biological mechanisms (Winkelman 2010a,
2011). The shamanic capacity for soul flight (aka out-of-body experience) is a widely attested
archetypal experience (i.e, near death experiences, astral projection) manifesting innate
structures of psyche (Winkelman 2019b). These involve innate intelligences and experiential
capacities of the mimetic body and its ability to represent experiences apart from the physical
body—which is notably inert and unresponsive during these episodes
The mimetic capacity that was present more than a million years ago undoubtedly produced
these kinds of experiences encountered in shamanic and contemporary ASC, a sense of a body
self separate from the physical body. Once such experiences occur, is it intrinsic to express them
through enactment, gestures that convey inner states, imitation of experiences and feelings (i.e.,
flying) and drawings as illustrated in flying figures and energy experiences expressed in rock art
as halos around head and energy emanating from head, eyes and hands. These expressive
mediums communicate explicit beliefs about internal experiences and perceptions of unseen
realities that intuitively resonate with others. These nonverbal communicative behaviors
mediated through mirror neurons still manifested in art, theater, music and dance where their
embodied expressions evoke shared complex understandings about their meaning.
Do these systems of meaning have the capacity to express 5th order intentionality, as Dunbar says,
are they capable of communicating meaningful ideas about spiritual experiences and determine
that others understand their beliefs or propositions?
Mimesis and intentionality
Language criteria have long dominated concepts of uniquely human consciousness and
institutions such as religion, but many social constructions function without language, where
social actions construct social facts that provide understandings of common frameworks of
interpretation (Gebauer 2000). Practical knowledge exhibited in the bodily, historical and
cultural context of social actions express shared meanings manifested in political pageantry,
religious ritual, dramatic performances, economic exchanges, etc.
An enactivist theory of cognition illustrates how collective action makes explicit the dynamical
relations, normative interpretations and institutional frameworks imposed by artifacts, material
conditions, tools, expressive manifestations (Gallagher and Ransom 2016). These reveal higher
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level intentions and beliefs, commitments, and knowledge that emerge apart from unspoken
cognitive processes and knowledge presuppositions manifested by the coordinated interactions
among agents and artifacts and their interpersonal relations and social structures.
The cognitive niche modifies environmental features to include representations that are products
of cultural engagements with the material world rather than just internal mental representations.
This shifts the evolutionary framework to embodied cognition approaches that account for the
emergence of religion and the modern mind in interactions of anatomical and neurological
features with cultural and material influences.”
Bourdieu (1977, 1990, 2000) illustrates multivocal symbolizations of institutionalized social
forms convey complex understandings of shared beliefs and intentions mediated through the
habitus which manifests in behavior the linkages across social behavior, social structure and
shared interpersonal, social and cosmological constructs understood by others (Gebauer). These
are expressed in attitudes towards actions and others, manifesting assumptions, prejudices, ,
moral evaluations and relationships with the world. Shared models are particularly characteristic
of the personal and cultural identities ascribed as stereotypes and automatically activated on the
basis of perceived social group membership Hurley & Chater, 2005). These shared assumptions
are at a level that precedes language, providing understandings in shared conceptual systems
mediated by numerous informational mechanisms, including mirror neurons, embodied social
understandings and innate mechanisms of consciousness such as the shamanic soul flight
(Winkelman 2019b).
Neurotheology of the mimetic mind
The perspectives of neurotheology and neurophenomenology contend that widely distributed
features of religious thought and experience, especially active agents, illustrate that they are not
merely the product of cultural beliefs but manifestations of a psychobiological dynamic that
produces experiences shaped by innate capacities or cognitive modules (Winkelman 2017a,
2018). The recognition that the soul flight of shamanism is homologous to other forms of
unusual but powerful experiences provides a framework to analyze their origins in terms of
innate brain modules and functions. (Winkelman 2017a, 2018, 2019b). This neurotheology
perspective undermines any argument that shared linguistic systems are necessary to understand
others’ religious experiences and beliefs. Social understandings involve these fifth-order beliefs
when we agree to the social norms of our group and understand the punishment that results from
violations.
Does expression of an understanding of the social order, society in general, constitute the same
level of understanding (intentionalities) implied in Dunbar’s definition? Durkheim (1915)
proposed that primitive religion was the worship of society, relying on ethnographic accounts of
religious practices among Australian aborigines. Their social world involved descent-based clans
that were represented as animal totems and also conceptualized as a spirit power. The totem was
simultaneously a representation of the supernatural and society, expressing a homology between
social organization and the supernatural represented in totemic icons and the associated ancestor
spirits. So, if people understand fifth-order intentionality in social relations, an abstract
representation of the expectations of society, they must also have the capacity to infer fifth-order
intentionality in the supernatural experiences that it also represents and which they share.
Evidence indicates that while there is no necessary relationship between imitation and higher-
order intentionality, “imitation is intrinsically goal directed if it is mediated by higher-order
intentions; if imitation invariably involves the observer making inferences about the outcome
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that the model intended to achieve through an action. In this sense the observer’s goal is an
outcome that is represented by the observer as being the same as the outcome intended by the
model” (Prinz 2005, p. 168).
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Commented [AR1]: you should check this title. I
suspect that the "a" is superfluous
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