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An existential perspective on the psychological function of shamans

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 April 2018

Simon Schindler
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Kassel, 34127 Kassel, Germany. schindler@uni-kassel.dehttp://www.uni-kassel.de/fb01/institute/psychologie/sozialpsychologie/dr-simon-schindler.html
Jeff Greenberg
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721. jeff@email.arizona.eduhttp://psychology.arizona.edu/users/jeff-greenberg
Stefan Pfattheicher
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Ulm, 89069 Ulm, Germany. stefan.pfattheicher@uni-ulm.dehttps://www.uni-ulm.de/en/in/psy-soz/team/stefan-pfattheicher/

Abstract

Shamans deal with events that involve the threat of death. They help buffer death anxiety because, through their claimed supernatural abilities, they can provide both hope for averting death and evidence for existence of a spirit world offering continuance beyond death. Thus, managing the threat of mortality probably played a major role in the development and maintenance of shamanism.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

According to Singh, shamanism evolved by convincing observers that uncontrollable, uncertain events can be influenced by their ascribed supernatural abilities. These events include fundamental threats to life such as severe illness, crop failure, and famine. The need for control over such events is posited to be a driving force behind the development of shamanism. In addition to providing hope of averting lethal outcomes, the supernatural powers shamans claim and enact evidence of a spirit world. By doing so, these powers help validate belief systems that allow members of the culture to believe they have souls or spirits that continue beyond physical death. In this way, belief in shamans helps tribal members minimize their anxieties about death as a possible ultimate end of existence. Hence, we assert that the need to manage the potential for death anxiety has been a crucial driving force for the cultural evolution of shamanism. Our argument is based on terror management theory (TMT), a well-supported theory regarding how people cope with fear of death (Greenberg et al. Reference Greenberg, Pyszczynski, Solomon and Baumeister1986; Reference Greenberg, Vail and Pyszczynski2014).

Terror management theory assumes a conflict between the innate desire to live and the awareness of one's own death as a natural and inevitable event (Pyszczynski et al. Reference Pyszczynski, Solomon and Greenberg2015). This conflict produces an omnipresent potential for paralyzing anxiety, which the anthropologist Ernest Becker (Reference Becker1973) termed terror of death. If this potential terror were not minimized somehow, the pursuit of everyday activities would be unfeasible. According to TMT, as our ancestors became cognitively capable of being aware of their mortality, cultures were shaped to help their members manage their potential terror – and the more effectively they did so, the more that culture prospered. Cultural beliefs and rituals serve this indispensable anxiety-buffering function by giving enduring meaning, order, and permanence to existence. Thus, a wide range of aspects of cultures, such as norms, art, language, religion, and science, developed partly to serve this terror management function (Schindler et al. Reference Schindler, Reinhard and Stahlberg2013; Solomon et al. Reference Solomon, Greenberg, Schimel, Arndt, Pyszczynski, Schaller and Crandall2004; Reference Solomon, Greenberg and Pyszczynski2015).

Religions and supernatural beliefs are effective for buffering death anxiety by promising not only help from spirits and deities in this life, but also paths toward a literal afterlife (Becker Reference Becker1973; Vail et al. Reference Vail, Rothschild, Weise, Solomon, Pyszczynski and Greenberg2010). A variety of studies have supported the important role of supernatural beliefs in ameliorating concerns about mortality. Research shows that, after being reminded of one's mortality, people show reduced defensive reactions when provided evidence of an afterlife or led to think about their religious faith (e.g., Dechesne et al. Reference Dechesne, Pyszczynski, Arndt, Ransom, Sheldon, van Knippenberg and Janssen2003; Jonas & Fischer Reference Jonas and Fischer2006). Studies also have shown that reminding people of their mortality leads to more religiosity and stronger beliefs in supernatural agents (Norenzayan & Hansen Reference Norenzayan and Hansen2006; Vail et al. Reference Vail, Arndt and Abdollahi2012). In addition, challenging people's religious beliefs makes death-related thought more likely to enter consciousness, whereas bolstering religious faith makes it less likely (e.g., Jonas & Fischer Reference Jonas and Fischer2006; Schimel et al. Reference Schimel, Hayes, Williams and Jahrig2007).

Having briefly summarized the support for a TMT account of faith in the supernatural, we now address the development of shamanism. Singh asserts shamanism appears regularly in human societies, especially among hunter-gatherers. In explaining the development of shamanism, he argues that shamans' central function is to offer control over important, uncontrollable outcomes by having special, supernatural powers (e.g., interaction with the spirit world). Examples include illnesses healing, crops thriving, and famine ending. Evidently, the main events with which shamans deal include a threat of death. In fact, his analysis reveals that, in all investigated societies, shamans are concerned directly with at least one death-related threat. We therefore argue that the shamans' explicit job is largely to deal with threats of death and to protect people from them.

Furthermore, shamans provide several attributes that make them especially attractive anxiety buffers when it comes to matters of death. Shamans claim and enact supernatural abilities. They thereby provide proof to their community that a spirit world exists. These abilities thus allow hope not only for good outcomes in this life, but also for continuance beyond death in a next one. In this way, shamans facilitate both comfort and a sense of control of uncertain events during one's lifetime, and, importantly from a TMT perspective, psychological protection from the fear of no longer existing after death.

Interestingly, Norenzayan and Hansen (Reference Norenzayan and Hansen2006) directly investigated the effect of death on beliefs in shamans. In the study, one-third of all participants was asked to write their thoughts about their own death. Participants in two control groups wrote about either dental pain or participation in a team activity. All participants then read a newspaper article about the use of clairvoyant shamans for military purposes in the Cold War. Next, beliefs in shamans were assessed with items such as “The ancestral spirits that Shamans rely on probably exist.” Results revealed stronger beliefs after having thought about one's own death in comparison to the control groups. This effect occurred especially among religious people, emphasizing the relevance of preexisting investment in a supernatural worldview (Vail et al. Reference Vail, Arndt and Abdollahi2012). The findings of this study provide direct empirical support for our idea that belief in shamans serves a death-anxiety buffering function.

Overall, the cultural development of shamanism can be explained plausibly by humans' need to manage the threat of death, instead of merely controlling uncertain events, as suggested by Singh. Notably, we do not claim that providing feelings that events can be controlled is completely irrelevant. Our points are that the main events to control are those that could lead to death and that shamans also contribute to comforting beliefs about existing beyond death. Thus, shamans are, foremost, defenders against death. In fact, Singh himself stated that “cultural evolution and ingenious performers have assembled myths and customs that hack our psychologies to placate our anxieties” (sect. 7, last sentence). This is perfectly consistent with our point that death anxiety has played a major role in the development and maintenance of shamanism.

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