1. Biopsychosocial Origins of Ritual Healing: The Shamanic Paradigm and Substance Abuse Rehabilitation
Dr. Michael Winkelman, M.P.H., Ph.D.
School of Human Evolution and Social Change
Arizona State University (Retired )

2. Overview of Lecture Shamanism in Cross-Cultural Perspective
 Evolutionary Origins of Shamanic Capacities
Shamanistic Universals
Ritual, Alterations of Consciousness and Spirits
Psychobiological Aspects of Human Nature
Bases of Shamanistic Therapies
Alterations of consciousness as therapeutic mechanisms
 Shamanic Sociophysiological and Psychotherapies
Applying Shamanism in Substance Abuse Treatment
Altering Consciousness, Altering Self

3. Dramatic all night community ceremony
Classic “definition” of Shamanism (Eliade) “Shaman enters ecstasy to communicate with spirits on behalf of community”
Dramatic all night community ceremony
Singing, drums, dancing & story-telling
“Ecstasy” and “out-of-body experience”
“Soul flight”– Journey spirit worlds
Work with animal allies
Used for healing & obtaining information
Soul recovery, extraction & spirit removal

4. Cross-cultural Study of Magico-Religious Practitioners
Shamans, Priests and Witches (1992)
Standard Cross-cultural Sample --47 societies- 115 practitioner types- 236 variables
Statistical Determination of Practitioner Types
Shamanistic Healers
Shamans, Shaman/Healers, Healers and Mediums
Priests
Sorcerer/Witches

5. Cross-Cultural Evidence of Shamans: Shamans, Priests and Witches (1992)

6. Universals of Shamans Foraging and Nomadic Societies
Induce “Ecstasy”-Alterations of Consciousness
Visionary Experiences
Soul Flight/Journeys (not possession)
Death and Rebirth Experience
Animal Spirit Associations
Control of Spirits
Transformation Into/Animal Identity
Hunting Magic
Malevolent Acts – “sorcery”

7. Social Universals of Healing:
Shamanistic Healers
Shamans, Shaman/Healers, Healers and Mediums
Community Rituals
Alterations of Consciousness
Spirit Relations
Endogenous Healing Processes

8. Shamanistic Practices as Biological Healing Responses
Rituals as Endogenous Healing Processes
Opioids & Social Bonding, Placebo Effects
Alterations of Consciousness as Healing Responses
Integrative Mode of Consciousness
Spirit World
Manipulation of Psychosocial Structures
Soul loss, spirit attack, sorcery as archetypal

9. Foundations of Shamanism in Primate Displays
Group Chanting as Ritual Coordination
Drumming and Dancing
Deep Roots in Costly Signaling Mechanisms
Hominid Foundations of Shamanic Ritual:
Chimpanzee “Rain Dances”
Ritual as Symbolism through Mimesis
The body as a medium of communication

10. Biogenetic Bases of Shamanic Ritual
Foundations revealed in functions animal ritual
communication and social coordination
Community rituals as manipulation of socioemotional relations
Management of reptilian and paleomammalian brain processes
Group emotional coordination
Effects of group vocalization– music– on social psychology and health

11. Human Healing Response
Healing processes and concern for well-being of others as uniquely human trait
Expansions of adaptive effects of altruism
Adaptive consequences from care of others, provisioning, protecting
Benefits of experiences of well-being
Psychoneuroimmunological effects
Produces awareness of death
Awareness of the animistic “other”

12. Sociophysiological Dynamics of Community Ritual Relations
Expansion of mammalian opioid mediated bonding processes in hominin evolution
Community rituals to manage socioemotional dynamics of paleomammalian brain
Social Attachment Processes
Non-verbal Communication/Emotiomentation
Sense of Self and Identity

13. Community Rituals & Human Evolution
Ritual in Environment of Evolutionary Adaptation
Need to integrate unrelated social groups for reproduction and survival (Hayden, Rossano)
Advantages of intergroup bonds in protection, food and mate acquisition
Psychological adaptations for ritual participation
Ritual mechanisms of intergroup integration
Expanded capacity for interpersonal bonding
Ritual alteration of consciousness produced dissociation and ego dissolution that enhanced identification with others

14. Placebo Effects and Ritual Healing
Placebo response as source of ritual healing
Association with anomalous experiences—spirits and energies-- and hypnotic responses
Derivation from the dominance-submission dynamic
Produces effects of relaxation, opioid-mediated bonding responses

15. Hypnotic capacity as hereditary trait
Susceptibility to enter into cognized social reality
Dominance of social other in determining “reality”
Detachment from physical world in internal engagement
Capacity to engage physiological responses with imagined realities
Adaptations of capacity for dissociation from trauma in close personal relations

16. Ritual Technologies of Consciousness
Consciousness Altered through diverse means
fasting and pain induction
sleep deprivation and ritualized sleep
drumming, chanting, singing
exhausting exercise/dance
sensory stimulation and deprivation
heat and cold extremes
psychedelic and other drugs

17. Physiology of Shamanistic Alterations of Consciousness
Common effects on brain wave patterns
Slow wave synchronization (3-6cps/theta)
Integration by Serotonergic Mechanisms
Brain Stem-Limbic-Frontal Entrainment
Interhemispheric Synchronization
Synthesis of Behavior, Emotion & Thought

18. Visionary Experience as Presentational Symbolism
Pre-verbal symbolism for analysis, analogic synthesis, diagnosis
Provides enhanced accessibility to unconscious information and mechanisms for control of biological processes

19. Shamanistic Therapeutics
General ASC Therapeutic Effects
The Relaxation Response and Stress
Accessing the Unconscious
Extinction of Learned Patterns
Visualization/Mental Imagery
Psychosocial Opioid Release
Serotonergic Neuromodulation Psychoneuroimmunological Effects

20. Shamanistic Social Healing Processes
Community Relations and Social Support
Psychology of Self– Spirit Worlds
Managing Emotional Dynamics
Symbolic-Physiological Interactions

21. The Spirit World as Natural Psychology
Spirits as Neurognostic Structures = “Archetypes”
“Spirits as Fundamental Structures of Consciousness”
Self, “Others,” Animals, psychic structures/innate modules
Innate Modules --Biopsychosocial Structures of Human Nature
Manipulation of complexes of the Unconscious

22. Contemporay Implications of Shamanism
Conceptual Categories of “Evolved Psychology”
Structures of addiction and transcendence
Alterations of consciousness as natural and healthy process
Soul Loss from Trauma, Abuse
Role of Animal Powers in Self Management

23. The Biological Structures of Addiction and Transcendence
Evolved capacity for alteration of consciousness
Production of adaptive cognitive states
Insight as information integration
Visions as symbols of psychological processes
Enhanced individual-group integration

24. Psychosocial Dynamics of Addiction
Loss of transcendent technologies
Innate drive to alter consciousness is criminalized or pathologized/marginalized
Lack of Community Integration
Dissociation of Self/Emotions
Lack/Loss of Spirituality
Individual & Collective
Need for Identity Transformation
Serotonin Imbalances and Opioid Dependences

25. Shamanic Counseling of Addiction
Collective Ritual Activity--
Connection with community and others as social integration-healing process
Technologies of self-transformation
Drum, Dance and Chant as adaptations
Enhancement of self-awareness
Death & Rebirth as Self-Transformation
Relaxation and restful healing
Enhance/Restore Serotonin and Natural Opioids

26. Using ritual to transform and integrate consciousness
Shamanic Journey--Unconscious and Self
Death and rebirth as self transformation
Develop awareness of unconscious powers through shamanic journeying
Animal Spirits as Self Processes
Acquire assistance in self-maintenance through animal powers
Power animals/spirits as “healing energies”

27. Summary/Conclusions Evolved psychology for altering consciousness
Modern loss of community rituals
Ritual transforms and integrates consciousness
Natural modifications of consciousness
Ritual as key to sobriety and transcendence
Physiological effects of ritual activities
Normalization of serotonin and dopamine
Transformative power of sacred medicines