Evolution of Religion by Michael James Winkelman
Religion is a complex concept, with connotations far beyond its etymology in the Latin ligare, to bind together. My methodological approaches to identifying what is religion are based in comparative methods and evolutionary, biological and neurophenomenological perspectives.
My paradigmatic statement on religion in general is in Shamans, Priests and Witches A Cross-cultural Study of Magico-religious Practitioners. This not only demonstrated that there were basic similarities in shamans in foraging cultures around the pre-modern world, but that all forms of religious practitioners discovered in this empirical analysis (i.e., Priests, Sorcerer/Witches, Healers and Mediums) have cross-cultural similarities that indicated their forms and characteristics were not arbitrary and cultural, but rather biogenetic, derived from features of human nature. These biogenetic features are seen in the relationship of religious thought to innate cognitive processes (2015, 2019) and in the basic features of altered states of consciousness (2016, 2019)
The principal biogenetic bases for religion involve (from 2021):
1) alterations of consciousness used in healing rituals, manifested in a cultural universal of shamanistic healers (2013);
2) kin inheritance of leadership roles providing a hierarchical political organization of agricultural societies, manifested in priests (2007) who carry out collective rituals for agricultural abundance and propitiation of common deities; and
3) attribution of evil activities, manifested in witches who are persecuted and killed in subordinated groups of societies with political hierarchies and warfare.
My evolutionary perspectives engage both the sociocultural evolution of religion as well as the deep biological origins of religion in ritual and its evolution through shamanism (2002, 2009, 2015). The sociocultural evolution of religion is exemplified in how the forms of ritual healers change with sociocultural evolution (2021b):
Shamans (Foraging Shamans) found in societies with principal reliance on hunting, gathering and fishing for subsistence, and without political integration or warfare;
Shaman/Healers (Agricultural Shamans) found in societies with a major reliance on intensive agriculture and lacking supra-community political integration;
Healers found in societies with hierarchical political integration and war for resources; and
Mediums found in societies with hierarchical political integration and war for plunder and captives.
Sorcerer/Witches which result from warfare and social integration processes that produce a social transformation of the remnants of a foraging shamanism and that are persecuted as witches, exemplified in Roman Christian Europe (2022).
My interest in biological evolution of religion focuses on the roles of ritual in hominin evolution (2009, 2010, 2019). Ritual was a significant factor in our emergence from hominids as group rituals constitute the most complex behaviors in hominids (i.e., chimpanzees) and shamanic ritual was the most important social activity in foraging societies. My work shows the homologies between chimpanzee ritualization and shamanic ritual and the evolutionary factors leading to shamanism. The mimetic complex and its production of dance, drumming and song constituted a principal platform for ritual, expressive and cognitive evolution of hominins. These features are core to shamanism, and this and other evidence presented in Shamanism: A Biopsychosocial Paradigm of Consciousness and Healing illustrates why shamans have to be recognized as the deep origins of religion and a significant feature in human cognitive evolution.
I have also provided a broader paradigmatic statement on the biological bases of religion in a book co-authored with John Baker, Supernatural as Natural: A Biological Theory of Religion. Some of these ideas are further developed in an edited volume The Supernatural After the Neuro-Turn.
Articles
2022
From Shamans to Sorcerers: Empirical Models for Defining Ritual Practices and Ecstatic Experience in Ancient, Medieval and Modern Societies. In: The Routledge Companion to Ecstatic Experience in the Ancient World Edited by Diana L. Stein, Sarah Kielt Costello, Karen Polinger Foster. London: Routledge. Pp. 41-70. ResearchGate link2021
An Ethnological Analogy and Biogenetic Model for Interpretation of Religion and Ritual in the Past. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-021-09523-9 Researchgate link.2021
A cross-cultural study of the elementary forms of religious life: shamanistic healers, priests, and witches, Religion, Brain & Behavior, 11(1):27-45. doi:10.1080/2153599X.2020.1770845/ Researchgate link. Publisher link.2019
The evolutionary origins of the supernatural in ritual behaviours. In P. Craffert, J. Baker and M.J. Winkelman (eds.) The Supernatural After the Neuro-turn (pp. 48-68). Researchgate link.2019
The supernatural as innate cognitive operators. In P. Craffert, J. Baker and M.J. Winkelman (eds.) The Supernatural After the Neuro-turn (pp. 89-106). ResearchGate link.2019
Shamanic alterations of consciousness as sources of supernatural experiences. In P. Craffert, J. Baker and M.J. Winkelman (eds.) The Supernatural After the Neuro-turn. p. 127-147. Researchgate link.2019
Introduction: Evidence for entheogen use in prehistory and world religions. Journal of Psychedelic Studies Special Issue: Psychedelics in History and World Religions 3:43–62. Researchgate link.2019
The “Kamasutra” temples of India: A case for the encoding of psychedelically induced spirituality. Journal of Psychedelic Studies Special Issue: Psychedelics in History and World Religions 3:81-103 (M. Maillart-Garg and M.J. Winkelman). Researchgate link.2019
The entheogenic origins of Mormonism: A working hypothesis. Journal of Psychedelic Studies Special Issue: Psychedelics in History and World Religions 3:212-260. (R. Beckstead, B. Blankenagel, C. Noconi and M.J. Winkelman). Researchgate link.2016
Ethnological and Neurophenomenological Approaches to Religious Experiences. In B. Schmidt, (ed.) The Study of Religious Experience Approaches and Methodologies (pp. 33-51). Bristol, CT: Equiox Publishing. Researchgate link.2015
Shamanism as a biogenetic structural paradigm for humans’ evolved social psychology. Psychology of Religion and Spirituality 7(4):267-277. DOI: 10.1037/rel0000034. ResearchGate link.2015
Biogenetic structural perspectives on shamanism and raves: The origins of collective ritual dance. In: Exploring psychedelic trance and electronic dance music in modern culture. Emilia Simao, Armando Malheiro da Silva and Sergio Tenreiro de Magalhaes. Information Science Reference Pp. 1-37 Hershey, PA: IGI Global. ResearchGate link.2015
“Hallucinogens and Entheogens,” in Vocubulary for the Study of Religion Vol 2, eds. R. Segal & K. von Stuckrad (Leiden & Boston: Koninklijke Brill) Vol 2: 126-132. (Winkelman, M. and Hoffman, M.) ResearchGate link2014
Political and Demographic-Ecological Determinants of Institutionalized Human Sacrifice, Anthropological Forum 24:1, 47-70. Researchgate link.2014
Religion and Intergroup Conflict: Findings From the Global Group Relations Project. Psychological Science Vol. 25(1) 198–206 (with Steven L. Neuberg, Carolyn M. Warner, Stephen A. Mistler, Anna Berlin, Eric D. Hill, Jordan D. Johnson, Gabrielle Filip-Crawford, Roger E. Millsap, George Thomas, Michael Winkelman, Benjamin J. Broome, Thomas J. Taylor, and Juliane Schober. ResearchGate link.2013
Shamanism in Cross-Cultural Perspective International Journal of Transpersonal Studies, 31(2), pp. 47-62. ResearchGate link.2009
Shamanism and the Origins of Spirituality and Ritual Healing. Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture 3(4):458-489. Researchgate link.2007
Priests, Priesthoods and Priestesses. In Feda, M. (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Sex and Gender (vol. 3, pp. 1189-1196). Macmillan Reference USA. ResearchGate link2006
Cross-cultural Assessments of Shamanism as a Biogenetic Foundation for Religion. In: Patrick McNamara, ed. Where God and Science Meet: How Brain and Evolutionary Studies Alter Our Understanding of Religion. Pp. 139-159. Westport, CT: Praeger. ResearchGate link2006
Teaching about Shamanism and Religious Healing: A Cross-cultural, Biosocialspiritual Approach. Pp. 171-190. In: L Barnes and I. Talamantez, Eds. Teaching Religion and Healing. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (with Chris Carr). ResearchGate link2004
Shamanism as the Original Neurotheology. Zygon 39(1):193-217. Researchgate link.2002
Shamanism and Cognitive Evolution. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 12(1):71-101. Researchgate link.1998
Aztec Human Sacrifice: Cross-cultural Assessments of the Ecological Hypothesis. Ethnology 37(3): 285-98. ResearchGate link1997
Altered States of Consciousness and Religious Behavior. In Anthropology of Religion: A Handbook of Method and Theory. S. Glazier, ed. Westport, Conn: Greenwood 393-428. ResearchGate link1990
Shaman and Other “Magico-religious” Healers: A Cross-cultural Study of their Origins, Nature and Social Transformations. Ethos 18(3):308-352. ResearchGate link1986
Magico-religious Practitioner Types and Socioeconomic Conditions. 1985 C.S. Ford Cross-cultural Research Award. Behavior Science Research 20 (1-4): 17-46. ResearchGate link
Books and Edited Volumes
- 2019 Psychedelics in History and World Religions. Guest Editor Vol. 3 Special Issue of the Journal of Psychedelic Studies. ResearchGate link
- 2019
The Supernatural After the Neuro-Turn (eds. P. Craffert, J. Baker and M.J.Winkelman). ResearchGate link. Publisher link. - 2015
Supernatural as Natural: A Biological Theory of Religion. NY: Routledge/Taylor and Francis (M.J. Winkelman and J. Baker). Available from the Publisher. ResearchGate link. - 2010
Shamanism: A biopsychosocial paradigm of consciousness and healing. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO (Second Edition). ResearchGate link. Publisher link. - 1992
Shamans, Priests and Witches: A Cross-cultural Study of Magico-religious Practitioners. Anthropological Research Papers #44. Tempe, Az.: Arizona State University. Researchgate link