June 30, 2026
Woojang Sim
A folk tale about a magical ruler that heals and revives the dead is analyzed through a shamanic lens. The ruler acts as an axis mundi, a spiritual bridge connecting heaven and earth, guiding the soul back to the body. The tale's narrative follows shamanic initiation: a mysterious dream (supernatural calling), imprisonment and symbolic death, learning healing from animals (shamanic education), and reviving a princess to gain communal recognition. Similar shamanic elements appear in related tales, where powers like healing and understanding animals reflect traditional shamanic abilities. The study argues that shamanism, as a primordial system of thought, forms a foundational cultural framework underlying many folk narratives.
June 19, 2026
Jules Evans, Christian Jurlando, David Luke et al.
preprint
Belief in sorcery and supernatural harm is common among Western psychedelic users, with many reporting experiences they interpret as shamanic attack. In a survey of 895 adults involved in psychedelic culture, participants often downplayed indigenous sorcery frameworks in favor of psychological explanations, yet some left ceremonies convinced they had been harmed supernaturally. The study estimates the prevalence of such beliefs, examines how psychedelic experiences and cultural immersion shift these beliefs, and characterizes experiences interpreted as black magic. It also assesses whether fear of magical retaliation inhibits criticism of ceremonial leaders. Findings aim to inform harm reduction in ceremonial settings.
Religions
June 19, 2026
Dongkyu Kim
Shamanic healing rituals in Korea, specifically byeong-gut, paradoxically follow the rigid format of blessing rituals rather than adopting a clinical approach. This article argues that previous scholarship wrongly reduces shamanic healing to psychological comfort or social liberation. By integrating Roy Rappaport's theory of ritual invariance with relational ontologies from Bruno Latour and Tim Ingold, the authors propose a relational displacement model. Healing operates through two mechanisms: at the material level, the ritual objectifies and displaces individual suffering onto external surrogates; at the linguistic level, the invocation chant re-assembles the patient's fragmented life into a network of human and non-human agencies. The byeong-gut transforms suffering into an intelligible event within a shared cosmic order.
IRA International Journal of Education and Multidisciplinary Studies
June 19, 2026
Liangying Zeng, Zongyu Xie, Yuyan Wang et al.
Robes from Tomb No. 1 at Mashan, Jingzhou, representative artifacts of the ancient Chu state, encode a hierarchical symbolic system. Using semiotics and textual exegesis of the Chu Ci alongside excavated bamboo slips, the analysis of three motif categories—divine symbols, cosmic imagery, and botanical patterns—reveals that the decorative patterns convey Chu cosmology, ritual practices, and aspirations for longevity. This finding bridges textual religious records and material cultural relics, providing a foundation for studying cross-cultural transmission of Chu heritage.
Journal of Psychedelic Studies
June 2, 2026
Brandon Reynante, Jack Buchanan
Music has been integral to psychedelic experiences across history, from shamanic rituals to modern psychedelic-assisted therapy (PAT), yet standardized protocols for its use are lacking. This interdisciplinary review compared musical features in three contexts: modern PAT, traditional entheogenic rituals, and musically-induced peak experiences. Conflicting features emerged: PAT music peaks with simplicity, consistency, and slow tempo; ritual music uses simple forms with rhythmic complexity, subtle variations, and fast tempo; peak-experience music is complex, surprising with large dynamic changes, and fast. These differences likely stem from music's assumed role and the associated non-ordinary state of consciousness.