Shamanism is not itself a single religion, but rather a practice found in religious traditions throughout the world. In its simplest form, shamanism involves a person having a mystical experience which often includes intense feelings of communication with a spiritual realm that is different from the human realm. Shamanistic practices involve a trance state of some type. In many tribal societies, both ancient and modern, shamans functioned as part-time religious leaders who conducted many different kinds of ceremonies.
While universalizing religions, such as Christianity, have a doctrine or creed as their foundation, those religions based on shamanism are based on experience with an emphasis on personal experience and personal involvement with the spirit world. In their book Thinking Big: How the Evolution of Social Life Shaped the Human Mind, Clive Gamble, John Gowlett, and Robin Dunbar write:
“These kinds of religions do not normally have a theology, nor do they involve belief in gods of a conventionally understood kind. Instead, they use music and dance to create trance states during which the adept enters a spirit world peopled by therianthropic animals and ancestors, some of whom are dangerous and some of whom act as benign spirit guides.”
Shapeshifting (therianthropy) is the ability for humans to take on animal shapes, and vice versa. This is not only a common theme in mythologies from around the world, but is also depicted in both ancient cave art and portable art such as figurines. One example of art which appears to show shamanistic shape-shifting dates to 36,500 years ago: the Löwenmensch (Lion-man) of Hohlenstein-Stadel is a small (11.8 inches high) figurine which shows a human figure with a lion head. In many cultures, some shamans are believed to have a shape-shifting ability.
Shamanistic ceremonies are not always ceremonies conducted by religious specialists on behalf of their communities or clients, but are often ceremonies which involve the active participation of non-specialists.
The Trance
The key to studying and understanding shamanism does not lay in a careful examination of beliefs, myths, or dogma, but rather it begins by trying to understand the practice of shamanism. While the actual practice of shamanism varies greatly throughout the world’s thousands of cultures, there is one common element to shamanistic practice: the goal is to enter into a trance state, a state which transcends ordinary existence.
The trance state allows the soul/spirit/essence to leave the body, to travel to other worlds, and to talk with other spirits. In this state, the shaman attempts to diagnose illness, to locate game, and/or to uncover future events. In some instances, the soul or spirit of the shaman may merge with that of an animal giving the sensation of shape-shifting.
Among the !Kung, a hunting and gathering people whose homeland is in the Kalahari Desert of southern Africa, the shamanistic trance state is known as !kia. In a report in Kalahari Hunter-Gathers: Studies of the !Kung San and their Neighbors, Richard Katz writes:
“Through !kia, the !Kung participates in the religious dimension. Transcending himself, he is able to contact the supernatural, a realm where the ghosts of dead ancestors live.”
In his book The Mind in the Cave: Consciousness and the Origins of Art, David Lewis-Williams writes:
“The San do not use hallucinogens; instead they induce an altered state of consciousness by intense concentration, audio-driving, prolonged rhythmic movement, and hyperventilation (swift, shallow breathing).”
David Lewis-Williams also writes:
“In deep trance, the shamans’ spirits are believed to leave their bodies through the top of the head. They may then travel to other parts of the country to find out how friends and relatives are faring, or they may go to God’s house, where they plead for the lives of the sick.”
Ritual
Ritual is simply a standardized way of doing something, and for many shamanistic practitioners, ritual allows them to enter into a trance state more quickly and easily. In his book In Gods We Trust, Scott Atran describes ritual this way:
“Most often, religious rituals involve repeated, generally voluntary, and usually reversible states of emotional communion in the context of formulaic social ceremonies. Here, supernatural agents, through their surrogates and instruments, manifest themselves in people’s affections.”
While shamanistic rituals can be individualistic in that they involve only one person, there are rituals which may involve other people, and, in some cases the entire community. Community rituals may serve many different functions, from healing (both physical and spiritual) to enhancing social cohesion. Richard Katz writes:
“!Kia and its setting of the !kia dance, serves many functions. It is the !Kung’s primary expression of a religious existence and a cosmological perspective. It provides healing and protection, being a magicmedical mode of coping with illnesses and misfortune. The !kia at the dance also increases social cohesion and solidarity. It allows for individual and communal release of hostility. Finally, the dance alters the consciousness of many members of this community.”
Music and Dance
Dance is an important part of many shamanistic ceremonies and may be a factor in inducing a trance state. The use of drumming and chanting while moving the body in rhythm to beat often has a hypnotic effect on participants. In some dances, the participants may fall to the ground when they enter into the trance state.
In the 1923 book Sacred Dance in the Ancient World, W.O.E. Oesterley talks about the Ecstatic Dance in which the dancer enters into a trance state:
“The loss of consciousness which eventually takes place is replaced, so it is believed, by the indwelling of the divine spirit; the body thus becomes the temporary abode of the deity, and is utilized for divine purposes.”
W.O.E. Oesterley also writes:
“The purpose of this dance is to effect union with a superhuman spirit; the body, temporarily ‘emptied’ of consciousness, is believed to be entered by the god or spirit in whose honour the dance takes place.”
One example of dance being used to induce a trance state can be seen in the so-called Ghost Dance movement among Native Americans in the late nineteenth century. The Paiute prophet Wovoka had died and then returned to life with a new dance for his people. The dance itself is a circle dance in which the dancers symbolize the ingathering of the people in the embrace of God and his prophet Wovoka. The people dance in harmony with the sun, always moving to the left, symbolizing that they must live and work in harmony. In an article in Journal of the West, Meldan Tanrisal writes:
“Holding hands was one of the distinctive features of the Ghost Dance that marked it as different from other Indian dances. Symbolically this could be interpreted as a reaching out not only to one’s immediate neighbor in the dance, but to all Indian peoples.”
With the rhythmic chanting and dancing, some of the dancers would fall to the ground in a trance state and experience intense visions.
With regard to the Khoisan people (!Kung) of the Kalhari, David Lewis-Williams, Thomas Dowson, Andrew Lock, and Charles Peters, in their report on Bushman rock art in the Handbook of Human Symbolic Evolution, write:
“A shaman becomes full of potency through a trance-inducing dance, altering his or her state of consciousness through hyperventilation, intense concentration, and sustained rhythmic dancing.”
One of the features of many rituals is music which triggers many emotions—joy, fear, sadness, happiness—in the brains of listeners. Music can also aid in the transition to the trance state. In his book In Gods We Trust, Scott Atran writes:
“Music, which involves patterned modulation of people’s sense of time, arouses and manipulates affective states and cognitive representations in ways inaccessible to consciousness. Moreover, especially in religious contexts, music is experienced as authorless, like the sacred texts that often accompany it.”
Scott Atran also reports:
“The pre-tonal religious music of small-scale societies usually has its mythic beginnings in the origins of the world, which invites audiences to share a sense of timeless intimacy.”
Hallucinogenic Substances
Throughout the world, people have ceremonially used hallucinogenic substances to induce the trance state. In his book The Believing Brain: From Ghosts and Gods to Politics and Conspiracies—How We Construct Beliefs and Reinforce Them as Truths, Michael Shermer reports:
“In addition to localized neural networks, hallucinogenic drugs have been documented to trigger preternatural experiences, such as the sense of floating and flying stimulated by atropine and other belladonna alkaloids. These can be found in mandrake and jimsonweed and were used by European witches and American Indian shamans, probably for this very purpose.”
Among Native Americans, there was a traditional emphasis on the personal vision. As the United States suppressed traditional Indian religions and required that Indians convert to Christianity, the Native American Church arose in the late nineteenth century as a pan-Indian religious movement. It incorporates many Christian elements as well as Indian elements. As a sacrament, the Church uses peyote, a small cactus which grows in Texas and Mexico. Peyote contains numerous alkaloids, including mescaline. During an all-night ceremony which includes drumming and singing, the participants ingest peyote and then experience intense visions.
Use of hallucinogenic plants seems to have a long history. In Turpan in northwest China, archaeologists uncovered a grave from the first millennium BCE in which the body of a 35-year-old man was wrapped in Cannabis shroud. The archaeologists feel that these plants were used for their psychoactive properties.
The ceremonial tomb of Newgrange in Ireland, which was constructed between 3,370 BCE and 2,920 BCE, also appears to show evidence of ceremonial use of hallucinogenic substances.
The entrance stone to Newgrange is shown above.
Another view of the entrance stone.
Shown above is a detail of spirals carved on the stones at Newgrange.
The entrance stone to the tomb is carved with a triple spiral. This has suggested to some people that the people who carved the stone were influenced by visions which may have been induced by using hallucinogenic substances. Archaeologists Geraldine Stout and Matthew Stout in their book Newgrange, write:
“Some suggest that the people who decorated the passage tomb at Newgrange drew on the imagery of ritualized altered states of consciousness.”
Geraldine Stout and Matthew Stout also report:
“One experiment with hallucinogens produced a pen-and-ink drawing that combined spirals and lozenges uncannily similar to those on the entrance stone.”
In Ireland’s Boyne River Valley, the Neolithic sites of Knowth and Newgrange have more than 200 examples of swirling and geometric designs pecked into rock.
Darkness
In some shamanistic ceremonies, darkness is used as a form of sensory deprivation to aide in inducing a trance state. In many parts of the world, shamans have used caves as a ceremonial setting. Caves are often viewed as transitional places or portals between the world of the surface where there is light and the mysterious and sacred underworld where there is darkness.
In Europe, there are more than 300 caves which contain Paleolithic art and which may have been used for shamanistic rituals. In their book The Scots: A Genetic Journey, Alistair Moffat and James Wilson write about these caves:
“The form of rituals involving the animal paintings, music, song and dance can be guessed at but no detail has come down to us. But that these rites were long-lived there can be no doubt.”
For rituals conducted in caves, the darkness not only emphasized the mystical experience, but the acoustics in the cave also amplified the chanting and may have helped in obtaining the trance state.
Among some Native American groups today, there are ceremonies which are conducted in total darkness. The sweatlodge provides one setting in which there is a combination of total darkness, intense heat, and chanting which may be accompanied by drums and rattles. This setting makes it possible for some participants to have visions.