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 intuition that otherness signals supernatural contact is common.

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

Unique among animals, we humans cultivate altered states of consciousness in our efforts to contact the beyond.

In short, it is our subjective evaluation of a practice's appeal--and less its real-world impact on our health, fertility, or strength—that often determines whether it sticks around and spreads. Of course, subjective appeal and objective benefits often converge. Hammers, matches, and spears produce material advantages, which is why we continue to u

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

…a pervasive human activity: engaging with the supernatural to control life's uncertainties. Such engagement is at the core of shamanism wherever it occurs. Shamans are believed to summon souls, channel ancestors, and struggle against witches. They call upon spirit familiars who travel across time and space. They leave their bodies to journey to he

… the more foreign a state is from normal behavior, the more it demonstrates special powers and supernatural contact. A shaman who chitchats with an audience in their everyday voice is likely to be considered a fraud. One who thrashes violently, speaks in a strange voice, and then doesn't remember anything afterward is more conceivably doing someth