Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-l7hp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T01:48:42.720Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Shamanism and the psychosis continuum

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 April 2018

Robert M. Ross  and
Ryan McKay
Robert M. Ross
Affiliation:
Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology, University of Oxford, Oxford OX2 6PE, United Kingdom. ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and Its Disorders, and Department of Cognitive Science, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia. [email protected]://www.ccd.edu.au/people/profile.php?memberID=595
Ryan McKay
Affiliation:
ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and Its Disorders, and Department of Cognitive Science, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia. [email protected]://www.ccd.edu.au/people/profile.php?memberID=595 Department of Psychology, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham, Surrey TW20 0EX, United Kingdom. [email protected]://pure.royalholloway.ac.uk/portal/en/persons/ryan-mckay_cda72457-6d2a-4ed6-91d7-cfd5904b91e4.html
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Singh's cultural evolutionary theory of shamanism is impressive, but it does not explain why some people become shamans while others do not. We propose that individual differences in where people lie on a “psychosis continuum” could play an important causal role.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 41 , 2018 , e84
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Devereux, G. (1956/2000) Normal and abnormal. In: Cultural psychiatry and medical anthropology, ed. Littlewood, R. & Dein, S., pp. 213–89. Athlone.Google Scholar
Linscott, R. J. & van Os, J. (2013) An updated and conservative systematic review and meta-analysis of epidemiological evidence on psychotic experiences in children and adults: On the pathway from proneness to persistence to dimensional expression across mental disorders. Psychological Medicine 43(6):1133–49. doi:10.1017/S0033291712001626.Google Scholar
Luhrmann, T. M. (2011) Hallucinations and sensory overrides. Annual Review of Anthropology 40(1):71–85. doi:10.1146/annurev-anthro-081309-145819.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Luhrmann, T. M. (2017) Diversity within the psychotic continuum. Schizophrenia Bulletin 43(1):27–31. doi:10.1093/schbul/sbw137.Google Scholar
Luhrmann, T. M., Nusbaum, H. & Thisted, R. (2010) The absorption hypothesis: Learning to hear God in evangelical Christianity. American Anthropologist 112(1):66–78. doi:10.1111/j.1548-1433.2009.01197.x.Google Scholar
Luhrmann, T. M., Nusbaum, H. & Thisted, R. (2013) “Lord, teach us to pray”: Prayer practice affects cognitive processing. Journal of Cognition and Culture 13(1–2):159–77. doi:10.1163/15685373-12342090.Google Scholar
Murphy, J. M. (1976) Psychiatric labeling in cross-cultural perspective. Science 191:1019–28.Google Scholar
Noll, R. (1983) Shamanism and schizophrenia: A state-specific approach to the “schizophrenia metafor” of shamanic states. American Ethnologist 26:443–59.Google Scholar
Pennycook, G., Ross, R. M., Koehler, D. J. & Fugelsang, J. A. (2016) Atheists and agnostics are more reflective than religious believers: Four empirical studies and a meta-analysis. PLoS ONE 11(4):e0153039. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0153039.Google Scholar
Polimeni, J. (2012) Shamans among us: Schizophrenia, shamanism, and the evolutionary origins of religion. EvoEbooks.Google Scholar
Polimeni, J. & Reiss, J. P. (2002) How shamanism and group selection may reveal the origins of schizophrenia. Medical Hypotheses 58(3):244–48. doi:10.1054/mehy.2001.1504.Google Scholar
Powers, A. R. III, Kelley, M. S. & Corlett, P. R. (2017a) Varieties of voice-hearing: Psychics and the psychosis continuum. Schizophrenia Bulletin 43(1):84–98. doi:10.1093/schbul/sbw133.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ross, R. M., Hartig, B. & McKay, R. (2017) Analytic cognitive style predicts paranormal explanations of anomalous experiences but not the experiences themselves: Implications for cognitive theories of delusions. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry 56:90–96. doi:10.1016/j.jbtep.2016.08.018.Google Scholar
Ross, R. M. & McKay, R. (2017) Why is belief in God not a delusion? Religion, Brain & Behavior 7(4):316–319. doi:10.1080/2153599X.2016.1249917.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Silverman, J. (1967) Shamans and acute schizophrenia. American Anthropologist 69(1):21–31. doi:10.1525/aa.1967.69.1.02a00030.Google Scholar
Stanovich, K. E. (2011) Rationality and the reflective mind. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
van Os, J., Hanssen, M., Bijl, R. V. & Ravelli, A. (2000) Strauss (1969) revisited: A psychosis continuum in the general population? Schizophrenia Research 45:11–20. doi:10.1016/s0920-9964(00)90323-2.Google Scholar
van Os, J. & Reininghaus, U. (2016) Psychosis as a transdiagnostic and extended phenotype in the general population. World Psychiatry 15(2):118–24.Google Scholar