Bridging the gap between neurology and theology: a Shamanic Perspective

Neurotheological perspectives assist to provide shared understanding and meaning between science and spiritual matters. There is growing interest in the relationship between faith, belief and well-being, within this literature primordial spiritual healing, that is shamanism, remains relatively neglected. Universal practices in shamanic healing have been determined through crosscultural studies which have identified related practices throughout huntergatherer societies. These universal approaches to well-being reflect an underlying neurological process which has been used as a basis for evolutionary theology. Scientific proposition should be measured by its falsifiability, while it is possible to measure neurological changes and responses under religious/spiritual circumstances, it is obvious that there remains a scientific quandary regarding the measure of such effects. One could postulate that the demonstrated neurological changes recorded across various spiritual conduct are the result of modified respiration, deep relaxation and inhibition (resulting in neurological measures associated with Western concepts of schizophrenia), one can not clearly state that there arent alternative explanations for the changes in brain function that become apparent. It is not the purpose of this work to enter into debate regarding the existence of anything other than that which can be measured, yet the significance of culturally identified shamanic experience continues to provide an opportunity for further human behavioral inquiry. Neurotheological understandings of impulses related to spiritual experience in terms of human biological and evolutionary psychology enhance appreciation of particular aspects of spirituality, whiles continuing to be often limited by biased reporting by culture- or religion- specific impressions and perceptions. These biases include the continued approach at defining religiosity in terms of lived experiences. Cross-cultural and cultural sociological research around religious practices assists to overcome such limitations from cultural, ideological, and faith-specific conceptions of religiosity. Using systemic cross-cultural samples in research has revealed universal magico-religious practice that provides transcultural settings for neurotheological theorems. Hunter-gather societies worldwide practice religious events involving a complex of specific characteristics, practices, and beliefs collectively known as shamanism. The direct replication of such primordial ritual across vast areas can not be represented or explained by chance alone. Through the study of trans-cultural experience, reports of replicated experience and religious conduct must be seen to have a neuro-cognitive basis, since primordial cultures were kept in isolation from one another through the entire developmental phase of shamanic healing

experience. Hence, replicated reporting of experience can not be seen as shared knowledge throughout the various cultures, since they knew not of one another. Universals of shamanic practices have their origins in innate representational neurological and cognitive structures and processes, which provide a collective representation of healing and spiritual experience. The following essay charts the shamanic paradigm of neurotheology and presents shamanism at the foundations and origins of human cognitive evolution and spiritual understanding. The use of innate representational modules and natural processes that provide the mentioned foundation are also described. Shamanic ritual practices and experiences such as soul flight, spirit quests and concepts of death and rebirth engage fundamental structures of complex cognition and consciousness, which represent the psyche, self, and shamanic community. Social adaptations within the shamanic concept use biological potentials, provided by integrative altered states of consciousness (ASC) to facilitate community integration and assimilation, personal development, identity construct and healing. The practices found in shamanism augment the connections between the limbic system and lower brain structures and propel these synchronous integrative slow wave (theta) discharge and firing into the frontal lobe. Such integrative dynamics have been shown to enhance concentration, selfawareness, learning and memory. These dynamics elicit mechanisms which act to concrete self concepts, attachment, motives and feelings of conviction. Psychobiological dynamics of ASC (including the relaxation response, effects on serotonergic action and endogenous opioid production, including the activation of the paleomammalian brain) are all evident as therapeutic outcomes which are apparent in shamanic ritual. Shamanic practice mobilizes and manipulates emotions, social bonding, attachments, sense of self and individual and communal identity, which creates a primordial development of consciousness that constitutes some of the earliest manifestations of culturally modern people. Consciousness as a shamanic structure is evident and manifest in the universal use of ASC in religious and spiritual healing, contemporary illness termed spiritual emergency, the dynamics of addiction, rudimentary elements of contemporary spontaneous religious experiences and the modern resurgence of neoshamans. The foundation of the shamanic paradigm in psychobiology and evolutionary psychology of consciousness explains the widespread presence in both ancient and contemporary societies, that is that the value of neurotheological experience remains current and practiced throughout time and across cultures, even today. This psychobiological foundation makes shamanism a natural exemplar for theories of religious experience, while highlighting the significance of neurophenomenological approaches to religious experience. Still, little convincing evidence exists regarding the way in which these practices are formed, shaped or transmitted across cultures (considering primordial barriers to communication such as locale, limited and primal technology and so forth), yet what remains apparent is the mystery of how shared universal meaning,

symbolization, neurobiological effect and recurrent ritual patterns that are attributed and shared trans-culturally through shamanic practices, can possibly come from differing neurobiological origins, while all arriving at the same outcome. CROSS-CULTURAL STUDIES OF SHAMANIC (MAGICO-RELIGIOUS) PRACTITIONERS Continued dispute remains regarding the nature of shamanism. While some claim that the concept of the shaman should only be used to describe practices from cultures in Siberia (where the term was derived), others contend this is a limited perspective on shamanism and is not empirically grounded. Pragmatic studies based on worldwide samples, systemic cross-cultural research, and formal quantitative analysis have established the there are universals of shamanism and that the idea of the shaman has an etic status (i.e. across numerous cultural settings). Shamanic practice is not an isolated or capricious or culturally specific or isolate concept but a defined complex of characteristics to be found in magico-religious practitioners of hunter-gather and uncomplicated pastoral and agricultural societies throughout the world. Similar healers are not restricted to Siberia or Asia, with empirical data demonstrating a worldwide distribution, not which is a result of diffusion of traditions, as assessed by autocorrelation analysis (Winkelman, 1986). There needs to be a distinction made between shamans from less complex societies and other practitioners that practice shamanic healing, general healers and mediums, all of which have gained prominence in developed and complex societies of the west (Winkelman, 1992). EMPERRICALLY DERIVED CHARACTERISTICS OF SHAMANS In order to further distinguish western ideas of shamanic practices from other primordial cognitive and neurologically valid forms of shaman practice, the following are derived from empirically based characteristics demonstrated transculturally, that in some way alter neurological functioning and are evident of an ASC; Ecstasy, an ACS experience known as either soul flight or soul journey in translation. Use of chanting, drumming, movement to induce genuine ASC experience. Accurate divination, medical diagnosis and prophecy. Training through deliberately induced ASC (vision quests) which involve the initiatory death-rebirth experience. Professional relations based on spirit relations, which become foundational to self-concept and identity (spirit guides, reincarnation). Animal relations and therapeutic relations based on totem animals and animal guides that induce ACS experience.

 Hunting ritual and magic Sorcery and possession by malevolent spirits Charismatic leadership. The primordial predisposition to complex cognitive processing and functions surrounding shamanic practices and experiences across cultures has remained undetermined. This is true of any viable causal explanations as to why we see the same shamanic experiences repeated throughout time, within a variety of settings and cultures that have not had the opportunity to influence one another, therefore nor can the earliest archeological data pertaining to shamanic practices be polluted by inter-populous experience (Richert & Smith, 2009).