Altered Mind / Altered Being - Discussion between John Vervaeke and Michael WInkelman

Panel discussion on the psychology and utility of Shamanic practice and the alteration of consciousness.

Featuring Dr. Michael Winkelman and Dr. John Vervaeke

Speakers:

Michael Winkelman

Healing and Human Nature: The Shamanic Paradigm

In foraging societies around the world the practices of shamanism were found, reflecting innate aspects of human’s ecopsychology and healing responses. These healing rituals of community drumming, song, and dancing engage a spiritual dimensions experienced through alterations of consciousness. The central role of ritual activities such as music and synchrony in hominin evolution attest to their fundamental importance in the modulation of human social relations and health. The numerous therapeutic effects of dance, drumming, music, and alterations of consciousness attest to a biopsychosocial foundation of human well-being. These were expressed in the context of healing rituals, where capacities for hypnotic susceptibility and placebo responses were selected as a consequence of their positive health effects. Psychedelics were also central therapeutic tools of shamanistic healing and development. These healing potentials are being rediscovered as effective treatments for persistent modern maladies such as treatment-resistant depression, PTSD, and addictions.

Michael Winkelman, PhD, University of CaliforniaIrvine; MPH, University of Arizona, retired from the School of Human Evolution and Social Change at Arizona State University in 2009. Winkelman has engaged in crosscultural and interdisciplinary research on shamanism, psychedelics, and altered states of consciousness, focusing principally on the universal patterns of shamanism and identifying the associated biological bases. His publications on shamanism include Shamans, Priests and Witches (1992), which provides a crosscultural examination of the nature of shamanism; and ShamanismA Biopsychosocial Paradigm of Consciousness and Healing (2nd ed., 2010). Shamanism provides a biogenetic model of shamanism that explains the evolutionary origins of spiritual healing in ancient ritual capacities. This biogenetic approach is expanded in an assessment of the evolutionary origins of religion in his coauthored Supernatural as Natural .These approaches provide a framework for understanding the contribution of psychedelics to the evolution of the human mind and social relations and their continued application in healing. Winkelman served as an expert witness for the defense in the Santo Daime case against the U.S. federal government, which won their right of religious freedom to use of ayahuasca as a sacrament. Winkelman received a Fulbright Fellowship for research on the health of ayahuasca church members in Brazil during 2009 ( ). Winkelman is currently living near Pirenopolis in the central highlands of Brazil; he may be reached through his website, michaelwinkelman.com .

John Vervaeke

The Cognitive Enhancements of Shamanic Altered Stares of Consciousness

This talk will argue that shamanic ritual can induce an altered state of consciousness that enhances insight, mindsight, implicit learning, and optimizes cognition and consciousness in an integrated manner. This account integrates well theoretically with Winkleman’s work on cross modular and neuroaxial integration.

John Vervaeke is an Assistant Professor, in the teaching stream. He has been teaching at the University of Toronto since 1994. He currently teaches courses in the Cognitive Science program including Introduction to Cognitive Science, and the Cognitive Science of Consciousness; courses in the Psychology department on thinking and reasoning with an emphasis on insight problem solving, cognitive development with an emphasis on the dynamical nature of development, and higher cognitive processes with an emphasis on intelligence, rationality, mindfulness, and the Psychology of wisdom.

He also teaches a course in the Buddhism, Psychology and Mental Health program on Buddhism and Cognitive Science. He has won and been nominated for several teaching awards including the 2001 Students’ Administrative Council and Association of Part-time Undergraduate Students Teaching Award for the Humanities, and the 2012 Ranjini Ghosh Excellence in Teaching Award. He has published articles on relevance realization, general intelligence, mindfulness, metaphor, and wisdom. His abiding passion is to address the meaning crisis that besets western culture.