Conceptual problems undermine Singh's approach, which misrepresents the empirical research on shamans he cites (Winkelman Reference Winkelman1990; Reference Winkelman1992). Instead of using the empirical distinctions discovered between shamans and other magico-religious practitioners, he combines witch doctors, mediums, healers, priests, prophets, and others into a category he calls shamans on the basis that they all have trances. He does not provide a cogent view of trance; however, nor does he justify using the word shaman to refer to the actual object of his investigation: people who are good at deceiving others into thinking they can control uncontrollable events. His conclusion that shamans are “cheesecake” illustrates a loose metaphoric approach to a phenomenon that he ambiguates rather than clarifies.
To explain shamanism – a premodern worldwide phenomenon – we must account for the independent derivation of a complex of specific characteristics found cross-culturally in foraging societies (Winkelman Reference Winkelman1992), including the following:
• Shamans' charismatic roles as preeminent social leaders
• The unification of the community in an overnight ceremony
• Community engagement in dancing, drumming, and singing
• The alteration of consciousness and self-reference in out-of-body and death/rebirth experiences
• Effective divination and healing abilities
• Experiences of animal powers and transformation into an animal
• The use of supernatural power to harm
• Spirit beliefs about nature that provide a comprehensive animistic cosmology
Singh proposes that shamanism represents traditions developed through cultural evolution to convince people that a practitioner can influence unpredictable events. Singh's effort to use data to show that shamanism involves addressing uncontrollable events is based on an arbitrary classification of events as certain or uncontrollable and random. This illustrates the specious nature of his arguments. Since when is childbirth a controllable event in premodern societies, where it was a major source of mother and infant mortality? Why presume that political or economic activity is certain? Furthermore, the primary focus of shamanism involves using ritual to elicit endogenous healing responses (Winkelman Reference Winkelman2010a). These are not uncontrollable, but they are reliably elicited in hypnotic susceptibility and placebo responses and their health-enhancing physiological effects.
In defining shamans in terms of trance, Singh appears to attempt to explain what Winkelman (Reference Winkelman1992) called shamanistic healers: a universal social phenomenon of ritual specialists who ritually alter consciousness to enter into spirit relations for purposes of divination and healing. This concept of shamanistic healers underlying Singh's concept of shamanism is compromised by defining them in terms of trance, but discounting the analytic usefulness of trance with reference to biological (neurotheological) theories of altered states of consciousness (ASC). Biological theories are necessary because shamanistic healers deliberately use ASC for their functional roles in divination and healing (Winkelman Reference Winkelman2010a).
Explaining the human universals of trance – ritual ASC and shamanistic healing – requires an account of how and why these states occur and their nature and effects (i.e., Winkelman Reference Winkelman2011a; Reference Winkelman, Cardeña and Winkelman2011b), not merely considering them to be contrived displays to impress gullible people. Although Singh asserts that shamans use trance to violate intuitions of humanness, just what is human or non-human about trance is not critically addressed. Why should something virtually universal – institutionalized trance rituals – be considered a violation of humanness? What evidence is there that claims of non-normal powers and professional competition select for displays of trance and death/rebirth reports? Why should this subterfuge be proposed instead of recognizing the widespread natural occurrence of these experiences as consequences of extreme suffering, trauma, drug use, and other organic and psychological factors?
The notion that a similar complex of ritual behavior is the consequence of selection presumes that the behaviors facilitate adaptations. Singh undermines his own argument by first stating that his theory is agnostic regarding whether shamans provide benefits. Later, however, he claims that shamans control events with “fitness-relevant” outcomes. Adopting explanations based on cultural selection, how did more gullible people believing in people who appear to control uncontrollable mechanisms enable their groups to outcompete other cultures? How do these presumptive delusions make cultures more adaptive and able to outcompete others? How did susceptibility to superstitions regarding people who claim they can control unseen causal agents or uncontrollable events affect survival-relevant outcomes? Why should people prefer “successful-appearing practices” (sect 3.4, para. 2) rather than actually successful practices? Singh fails to address how these superstitions about powerful others can select for more competitive cultures or the complex of behaviors associated with shamanism. If Singh wants to attribute shamanism to a susceptibility to suggestion by powerful others, the co-evolution of shamanism, the hypnotic capacity, and ASC are very relevant (Cardeña Reference Cardeña, Quekelbherge and Eigner1996; Rossano Reference Rossano2009; Winkelman Reference Winkelman2010a).
There is no need to presume that some need for superstition about special human powers leads to claims of invisible entities who control unpredictable events. There are well-recognized innate modules that underlie the assumptions of spirits – agency detection and interpersonal intelligence – that have established evolutionary bases (i.e., detection of predators and inferring the thoughts of others).
Singh's rejection of the hypothesis that shamanism exploits costly signals misses the point. Such displays function to signal one's commitment because their energetic cost provides credible display of commitment (Rossano Reference Rossano2015), regardless of when the benefits are received. Shamanic performance not only is a commitment manifested in extensive energy expenditure, but also produces positive effects on intragroup relations, intergroup signaling, and interspecies communication (Winkelman Reference Winkelman2010a).
Shamanism involved the evolution of the dynamics of a charismatic social leader who exploited ritual mechanisms to alter consciousness during a nighttime public dancing performance with the community joining in, singing and clapping. We see similar ritualization in chimpanzees' maximal display, which has integrative social and psychological functions that reveal the hominid basis from which shamanism evolved among our hominid ancestors (Winkelman Reference Winkelman2009; Reference Winkelman2010b; Reference Winkelman2015). The adaptive nature of this complex as a conspicuous display affecting humans and other species was the domain of behaviors in which cultural evolution acted to select for shamanic potentials. Shamanism evolved in the context of this ritual of empowerment that enhanced well-being, augmented consciousness through ASC, and enhanced susceptibility to ritually elicited placebo effects.
Conceptual problems undermine Singh's approach, which misrepresents the empirical research on shamans he cites (Winkelman Reference Winkelman1990; Reference Winkelman1992). Instead of using the empirical distinctions discovered between shamans and other magico-religious practitioners, he combines witch doctors, mediums, healers, priests, prophets, and others into a category he calls shamans on the basis that they all have trances. He does not provide a cogent view of trance; however, nor does he justify using the word shaman to refer to the actual object of his investigation: people who are good at deceiving others into thinking they can control uncontrollable events. His conclusion that shamans are “cheesecake” illustrates a loose metaphoric approach to a phenomenon that he ambiguates rather than clarifies.
To explain shamanism – a premodern worldwide phenomenon – we must account for the independent derivation of a complex of specific characteristics found cross-culturally in foraging societies (Winkelman Reference Winkelman1992), including the following:
• Shamans' charismatic roles as preeminent social leaders
• The unification of the community in an overnight ceremony
• Community engagement in dancing, drumming, and singing
• The alteration of consciousness and self-reference in out-of-body and death/rebirth experiences
• Effective divination and healing abilities
• Experiences of animal powers and transformation into an animal
• The use of supernatural power to harm
• Spirit beliefs about nature that provide a comprehensive animistic cosmology
Singh proposes that shamanism represents traditions developed through cultural evolution to convince people that a practitioner can influence unpredictable events. Singh's effort to use data to show that shamanism involves addressing uncontrollable events is based on an arbitrary classification of events as certain or uncontrollable and random. This illustrates the specious nature of his arguments. Since when is childbirth a controllable event in premodern societies, where it was a major source of mother and infant mortality? Why presume that political or economic activity is certain? Furthermore, the primary focus of shamanism involves using ritual to elicit endogenous healing responses (Winkelman Reference Winkelman2010a). These are not uncontrollable, but they are reliably elicited in hypnotic susceptibility and placebo responses and their health-enhancing physiological effects.
In defining shamans in terms of trance, Singh appears to attempt to explain what Winkelman (Reference Winkelman1992) called shamanistic healers: a universal social phenomenon of ritual specialists who ritually alter consciousness to enter into spirit relations for purposes of divination and healing. This concept of shamanistic healers underlying Singh's concept of shamanism is compromised by defining them in terms of trance, but discounting the analytic usefulness of trance with reference to biological (neurotheological) theories of altered states of consciousness (ASC). Biological theories are necessary because shamanistic healers deliberately use ASC for their functional roles in divination and healing (Winkelman Reference Winkelman2010a).
Explaining the human universals of trance – ritual ASC and shamanistic healing – requires an account of how and why these states occur and their nature and effects (i.e., Winkelman Reference Winkelman2011a; Reference Winkelman, Cardeña and Winkelman2011b), not merely considering them to be contrived displays to impress gullible people. Although Singh asserts that shamans use trance to violate intuitions of humanness, just what is human or non-human about trance is not critically addressed. Why should something virtually universal – institutionalized trance rituals – be considered a violation of humanness? What evidence is there that claims of non-normal powers and professional competition select for displays of trance and death/rebirth reports? Why should this subterfuge be proposed instead of recognizing the widespread natural occurrence of these experiences as consequences of extreme suffering, trauma, drug use, and other organic and psychological factors?
The notion that a similar complex of ritual behavior is the consequence of selection presumes that the behaviors facilitate adaptations. Singh undermines his own argument by first stating that his theory is agnostic regarding whether shamans provide benefits. Later, however, he claims that shamans control events with “fitness-relevant” outcomes. Adopting explanations based on cultural selection, how did more gullible people believing in people who appear to control uncontrollable mechanisms enable their groups to outcompete other cultures? How do these presumptive delusions make cultures more adaptive and able to outcompete others? How did susceptibility to superstitions regarding people who claim they can control unseen causal agents or uncontrollable events affect survival-relevant outcomes? Why should people prefer “successful-appearing practices” (sect 3.4, para. 2) rather than actually successful practices? Singh fails to address how these superstitions about powerful others can select for more competitive cultures or the complex of behaviors associated with shamanism. If Singh wants to attribute shamanism to a susceptibility to suggestion by powerful others, the co-evolution of shamanism, the hypnotic capacity, and ASC are very relevant (Cardeña Reference Cardeña, Quekelbherge and Eigner1996; Rossano Reference Rossano2009; Winkelman Reference Winkelman2010a).
There is no need to presume that some need for superstition about special human powers leads to claims of invisible entities who control unpredictable events. There are well-recognized innate modules that underlie the assumptions of spirits – agency detection and interpersonal intelligence – that have established evolutionary bases (i.e., detection of predators and inferring the thoughts of others).
Singh's rejection of the hypothesis that shamanism exploits costly signals misses the point. Such displays function to signal one's commitment because their energetic cost provides credible display of commitment (Rossano Reference Rossano2015), regardless of when the benefits are received. Shamanic performance not only is a commitment manifested in extensive energy expenditure, but also produces positive effects on intragroup relations, intergroup signaling, and interspecies communication (Winkelman Reference Winkelman2010a).
Shamanism involved the evolution of the dynamics of a charismatic social leader who exploited ritual mechanisms to alter consciousness during a nighttime public dancing performance with the community joining in, singing and clapping. We see similar ritualization in chimpanzees' maximal display, which has integrative social and psychological functions that reveal the hominid basis from which shamanism evolved among our hominid ancestors (Winkelman Reference Winkelman2009; Reference Winkelman2010b; Reference Winkelman2015). The adaptive nature of this complex as a conspicuous display affecting humans and other species was the domain of behaviors in which cultural evolution acted to select for shamanic potentials. Shamanism evolved in the context of this ritual of empowerment that enhanced well-being, augmented consciousness through ASC, and enhanced susceptibility to ritually elicited placebo effects.