Superattractors are "super" for two reasons. First, they are complex packages of functionally interrelated cultural attractors. Like a machine built from an array of interacting components, shamanism involves non-ordinary states, narratives of otherworldly contact, and goal-oriented services. Hero stories include not just triumphant endin

The rise of trance, spirit possession, and pastor-shamans is not a fluke in a shamanless end of history. It is a predictable outcome of an unfettered race to provide spiritual relief.

The irony is that Enlightenment principles have set shamans free. By insisting on autonomy, tolerance, and a separation of church and state, Enlightenment thinkers have protected ecstatic religions from subjugation while creating open markets for religious services.

Regardless of when we became socially and culturally modern, it is difficult to imagine a time when people had religion but not shamanism. This is because both require the same psychological foundations. As with shamanism, religion can develop only after a species is sufficiently skilled in cooperation, communication, and cultural transmission. Bel

Pinpointing the origins of shamanism thus requires thinking not about the psychology it taps into but about the broader social and cultural context. Shamanism requires sophisticated cultural learning. It requires being so cooperative that people turn to one another for specialized tasks. It requires linguistic skills at a level where clients can de

The convergent evolution hypothesis suggests that shamanism should be as old as the psychological ingredients that compose it. In fact, each ingredient seems evolutionarily primitive.

The recurrent emergence of shamanism is not conjecture based on universality; it is informed by our understanding of human psychology and cultural evolution. Our desperation to control uncertainty, our suspicions that agents cause misfortune, our tendency to accept special powers when people move beyond humanness—all of them interact to produce a r

The theory that shamanism is a compelling technology for dealing with uncertainty explains the spectrum of shamanic activities. Illness, weather, and beached whales are not scattered, unrelated events but members of a single class: big outcomes that we want control over and for which we are apt to suspect supernatural involvement. Shamans are not h

In 2015, the psychologist Bruce Wampold showed that, while some treatments might be better than others, these differences are small compared to the effects of contextual factors, like patient expectations, the relationship with the healer, and a shared understanding of the reason for suffering. Much of healing, whether by Colombian shamans or Johns