Journal of Psychoactive Drugs
June 1, 2005
Michael Winkelman
156 citations
Westerners who travel to the Amazon to drink ayahuasca are motivated not by drug tourism but by desires for spiritual connection, emotional healing, and personal self-awareness. Interviews with participants at an ayahuasca retreat revealed that their principal motivations included seeking spiritual relations, personal spiritual development, and contact with sacred nature, God, spirits, and plant energies. The perceived benefits centered on increased self-awareness, insights, access to deeper levels of the self, enhanced personal development, and a sense of personal direction in life. These findings point to transpersonal concerns rather than recreational drug use.
Current drug abuse reviews
January 1, 2014
Michael Winkelman
128 citations
Psychedelic substances such as LSD, peyote, ibogaine, and ayahuasca have been used in ethnomedical traditions for millennia and showed promise in addiction treatment during the 1950s and 1960s before being prohibited. Despite their Schedule I classification, evidence indicates these substances are safer than major addictive drugs, with very low mortality and little physical dependence. This review examines studies on these psychedelics for treating dependencies and their therapeutic mechanisms, including a notable after-glow effect linked to serotonin system activity. Serotonin's role is relevant because addict populations often have depressed serotonin levels, and serotonin modulates many other neurotransmitter systems.
Frontiers in Neuroscience
September 28, 2017
Michael Winkelman
105 citations
Psychedelics produce profound cognitive, emotional, and social effects that have historically inspired cultures and religions. They objectively and reliably induce classic mystical experiences, raising questions about the neuropharmacological mechanisms behind these effects. Hallucinatory experiences can also arise from non-drug mechanisms such as meditation, hypnosis, and epilepsy, suggesting a common underlying model. Disruption of normal prefrontal cortex and default mode network function appears central, releasing lower brain discharges that stimulate visual information processing and innate cognitive operators. Converging evidence points to the mirror neuron system as a source of these visionary experiences.
Frontiers in Psychiatry
April 24, 2018
Paulo César Ribeiro Barbosa, Luís Fernando Tófoli, Michael P. Bogenschutz et al.
95 citations
Members of the Brazilian União do Vegetal (UDV) who drink ayahuasca in ceremonies show lower rates of current alcohol and tobacco use disorders compared to the general Brazilian population, even though their lifetime use of these substances is higher. Among 1,947 UDV members aged 18 and older, those who attended more ceremonies in the previous year and had longer membership reported greater reductions in alcohol and tobacco problems. The findings suggest that regular ceremonial ayahuasca use, within a religious context, is associated with reduced substance misuse, particularly for adults over 24 years old.
Journal of Psychedelic Studies
June 1, 2019
Michael Winkelman
63 citations
Psychedelics, especially psilocybin, may have played a central role in the development of religion. The human serotonergic system responds more strongly to these substances than chimpanzees' receptors do, suggesting they were environmental factors affecting hominin evolution and contributing to the emergence of ritual capacities, shamanism, and altered consciousness. Evidence from fungiform petroglyphs, rock artifacts, and mythologies worldwide supports prehistoric use of psilocybin mushrooms, which continued into historic religious traditions, visible in sculpture, art, and scriptures. Although new entheogenic combinations appeared, complex societies generally restricted entheogens to elite spiritual practices and punished widespread consumption.
Frontiers in Pharmacology
February 23, 2021
Michael Winkelman
62 citations
Psychedelics, particularly psilocybin, may have influenced hominin evolution by acting as exogenous neurotransmitter sources that shaped selection for features of human psychology. The review argues that shamanism, an empirical phenomenon in foraging societies, integrates innate modular thought processes—self-awareness, other awareness, mind reading, spatial and visual intelligences—that psychedelics stimulate through effects on serotonin and dopamine systems and ancient brain structures. Differences between chimpanzee displays and shamanic rituals indicate a zone of proximal development in evolution, with mimetic capacities for dance, music, and imitation underlying shamanic performances. A shamanic-informed psychedelic therapy includes preparatory practices, a relational animistic worldview, focus on internal imagery, and incorporation of animal spirits, aiming to optimize set, setting, and ritual frameworks.
Journal of Psychedelic Studies
March 26, 2018
Michael Winkelman
42 citations
Psychedelic entity experiences, such as those induced by ayahuasca and DMT, share fundamental similarities with conceptions of spirit guides, divinities, angels, demons, and other mythical beings. These experiences arise from innate psychological modules and operators—such as animacy detection, social role inferences, and mind reading—that also underlie ordinary cognitive inferences and supernatural thought. The physiological effects of psychedelics release these innate modules, and the concept of a phantasy mode of consciousness explains how unconscious causal mechanisms produce accounts of encounters with non-human beings. DMT's extensive interaction with the receptorome accounts for the powerful sense of ontological certainty these experiences evoke.
Journal of Psychedelic Studies
May 29, 2019
Meena Maillart-Garg, Michael Winkelman
21 citations
The essay argues that entheogenic mushrooms and shamanic experiences are encoded in the erotic sculptures of the Khajuraho Temples in India. Statues with limbs in anatomically impossible positions or separated from the body represent dismemberment experiences typical of shamanic and mystical initiation, a phenomenon with precedents in Hindu and Buddhist traditions. The central placement of mushroom depictions in the temple structures supports the entheogenic hypothesis, though features distinguishing mushroom species are often ambiguous. The argument for the originality of Amanita muscaria is made by assessing principal names of the God Vishnu. A repeated “figure 8” pattern suggests artists deliberately constructed sculptures to appear vandalized to encode information about early stages of A. muscaria and other entheogenic fungi, connecting Hindu God Vishnu, Jain Mahaveera, and the Buddha.
Frontiers in Pharmacology
July 22, 2022
Leor Roseman, Katrin H. Preller, Evgenia Fotiou et al.
15 citations
As psychedelic treatments become more mainstream and medicalized, there is a growing focus on their pharmacological and psychological effects on the individual, at the expense of their social and cultural dimensions. Alienation and related mental health problems are increasing, highlighting the need for therapies that also foster social cohesion and a more equitable society. Psychedelics have historically brought people together and revitalized cultures through shared experiences. This social aspect—psychedelic sociality—should be integrated into current research and practice to realize their potential for both individual therapy and broader societal change.
November 22, 2013
Michael Winkelman
11 citations
Ayahuasca, a traditional medicine known for its psychoactive properties, has shown promising effects in the field of psychiatry. In a sample of 120 participants, 75% reported significant reductions in anxiety and depression after treatment. The hallucinogen’s alkaloids engage complex biochemical pathways, suggesting potential therapeutic benefits. Additionally, qualitative data from interviews highlighted profound psychological insights among users. This blend of anthropology and psychology underscores ayahuasca's role in modern medicine, bridging ancient practices with contemporary drug studies and therapeutic applications.
International Journal of Transpersonal Studies
January 1, 2013
Michael Winkelman
11 citations
A shamanic epistemology has a biological foundation, supported by the cross-cultural distribution of a cosmology derived from knowledge gained during altered states of consciousness. These states involve integrative brain conditions that access ancient ways of knowing, rooted in evolutionary communicative and social processes seen in animal displays. Over hominid evolution, these were augmented into expressive and mimetic activities, enabling epistemological expansions such as out-of-body experiences. Such manifestations reflect selection for expanded symbolic brain processes, enhancing psychological and cognitive integration. Shamanic alterations activated innate brain operators involving self-structures, contributing to experiences of spirits, power animals, and gods, illustrating shamanism as a neuroepistemology.
The International Encyclopedia of Anthropology
September 5, 2018
Michael Winkelman
3 citations
Shamanism and possession, though both involving ritual alterations of consciousness, differ in their experiential features: shamanic practices center on soul flight or out-of-body experiences where one's visual perspective separates from self and body, while possession episodes involve control by spirits and amnesia of the event, reflecting psychosocial dissociation. Cross-cultural studies show these differences are rooted in human nature. Both phenomena share biological features, however, in their elicitation of ancient brain systems that modify consciousness for healing and spiritual experiences.
Journal of Psychedelic Studies
June 1, 2019
Robert Beckstead, Bryce Blankenagel, Cody Noconi et al.
1 citation
Historical documents suggest that Joseph Smith used entheogen-infused sacraments to fulfill his promise that every Mormon convert would experience visions of God and spiritual ecstasies. Early Mormon scriptures and Smith's teachings contain descriptions consistent with entheogenic material. Compiled accounts of Smith's earliest visions and early convert visions reveal internal symptomology and outward bodily manifestations consistent with an anticholinergic entheogen. Due to embarrassing symptomology, Smith sought psychoactives with fewer outward manifestations. The visionary period fueled by entheogens played a significant role in Mormonism's rise. Smith's death ended visionary Mormonism, as his successor failed to use entheogens in worship.