Shamanic Healing Ceremonies, Hypnosis and the Survival of the Suggestibles
Online Journal of Complementary & Alternative Medicine December 10, 2019 S. Krippner
Shamanic rituals share the same stages—induction, deepening, suggestion, and enactment—as modern hypnosis. Shamans claim to gain information through visions and journeys, which they use to heal community members. Tribal members who did not respond to shamanic treatment may have lacked the ability to mobilize self-healing, so their genes were rarely passed on. Contemporary humans retain adaptive traits like responding to placebos, suggestion, imagination, and hypnotic induction, which likely originated in prehistoric shamanism.