Shamans and Psi: What Is the Evidence?
Paranormal data have largely been silently passed over in serious anthropological works….This is deplorable, for whether you accept their reality or not they should be discussed and evaluated.
Ake Hultkrantz
Shamans believe that the primary healing forces they invoke are spiritual. There are two very different and very controversial Western views of this belief. Traditionally, the most common interpretation was to see the belief as a classic example of “primitive” or “magical” thinking. The other interpretation is that shamanic healing reflects, in part, the operation of paranormal, psychic abilities.
THE DEBATE
There are many books on how to win friends and influence people, but surprisingly few on how to make enemies and alienate people. Here is a suggestion to fill the gap. Walk into a group of scientists and announce that you believe in parapsychology.
Three things will quickly become clear. First, most scientists, like most of the public, hold very strong opinions on the topic. Second, despite these strong opinions, they know very little about the relevant research. Third, parapsychology is, to put it mildly, a very controversial and highly charged topic.
Supporters claim that “a vast parapsychological literature exists on a host of rigorous experiments,”217 while skeptics retort that “not a single individual has been found who can demonstrate ESP to the satisfaction of independent investigators.”143 Proponents point to controlled studies showing that humans are capable of both extrasensory perception (ESP) and of psychokinetic (PK or mind on matter) effects on objects and organisms ranging from electronic circuitry to mice.174 Of particular relevance to shamanic healing are reports of PK effects on the growth of plants and fungi, on the activity of enzymes, the healing of mice, and the level of blood hemoglobin in humans.291 Hard-core critics dismiss such findings as miniscule, unreplicable, or due to experimenter incompetence. Consensus is not a common thing in parapsychology.
Despite this, any investigation of shamanic healing, if it is to be intellectually honest, needs to examine whether psi (psychic ability) plays a role. For as William James warned, “There is no source of deception in the investigation of nature which can compare with a fixed belief that certain kinds of phenomena are impossible.”232
A thorough examination of the possibility of psi in shamanism needs to cover three major areas:
• Claims for psi in other religious and healing traditions.
• Evidence (pro and con) in shamanism. This evidence includes anecdotal reports, experimental studies, and theoretical considerations.
• Experimental studies of psi, evaluating primarily its existence, and secondarily its possible nature.
PSI CLAIMS IN OTHER TRADITIONS
Most religions accept the reality of paranormal abilities such as, for example, the charisms of Catholicism, the siddhis of yoga, or the “adornments of the man of light” in Sufism.250 Some religions offer explicit techniques aimed at cultivating psi, but many techniques require enormous powers of concentration.37, 333
However, psychic abilities are often viewed as mixed blessings. While they can supposedly be used for good, they can also seduce practitioners away from more important spiritual goals. “All power corrupts,” says the old saying, and psychic power is no exception. Consequently, yoga recommends moksha (liberation) before siddhi (psychic abilities), some Catholic saints were supposedly chastised for displaying their gifts,250 and classical Buddhism “abhors the exhibition of occult forces.”123
In the West some highly respected physicians and psychiatrists, including such notables as Freud, Jung, and Jerome Frank, have suggested that psi plays a role in therapy. Frank wrote:
My own hunch, which I mention with some trepidation is that the most gifted therapists may have telepathic, clairvoyant, or other parapsychological abilities….they may, in addition, possess something that is similar to the ability to speed growth….and that can only be termed healing power. Any researcher who attempts to study such phenomena risks his reputation as a reliable scientist, so that pursuit can be recommended only to the intrepid. The rewards, however, might be great.104
In short, some very notable religious and medical authorities have accepted psychic abilities. But proof by authority is one of the weakest of all proofs, so let us turn to evidence. We need to consider three kinds of evidence: anecdotal reports, theoretical considerations, and experimental studies.
Anecdotal Reports
Anecdotes of supposed psychic displays are common. For example, a French missionary claimed that he witnessed clairvoyance in a New Caladonian shaman.
In the course of a great joyous feast he suddenly plunged himself into despair, announcing that he saw one of his illustrious relatives in Arama (a town several miles away) agonizing. A canoe was speedily sent to Arama, a three hour trip from there. The chief had just died.20
An example closer to home involved possible psychokinesis. Stanislav Grof reports that a well-known Huichol Indian shaman, Don Jose, was brought to the Esalen Institute in Northern California during a long severe drought when water supplies were strictly rationed.134 Don Jose therefore volunteered to perform a rainmaking ceremony. As dawn broke the next day, the bemused participants found themselves dancing in the rain.134
But anecdotal reports, no matter how dramatic, are at best suggestive, never conclusive, and can be interpreted in different ways. For example, the anthropologist Bogoras observed a Chuckchee who
made one of his “spirits” shout, talk, and whisper directly into my ear, and the illusion was so perfect that involuntarily I put my hand to my ear to catch the “spirit.” After that he made the “spirit” enter the ground under me and talk right in between my legs, etc. All the time he is conversing with the “separate voices” the shaman beats his drum without interruption in order to prove that his force and attention are otherwise occupied.
I tried to make a phonographic record of the “separate voices” of the “spirits”….when the light was put out, the “spirits” after some “bashful” hesitation, entered in compliance with commands of the shaman, and even began to talk into the funnel of the graphophone. The records show a very marked difference between the voice of the shaman himself, which sounds from afar, and the voices of the “spirits,” who seemed to be talking directly into the funnel.29
Bogoras was impressed but he remained convinced that these were ventriloquist tricks.
There can be no doubt, of course that shamans, during their performances, employ deceit in various forms and that they themselves are fully cognizant of the fact. “There are many liars in our calling,” Scratching Woman (a Chuckchee shaman) said to me. One will lift up the skin of the sleeping room with his right toe and then assure you that it was done by spirits; another will talk into the bosom of his shirt through his sleeve, making the voice issue from a quite unusual place.29
However, other people are just as certain that Bogoras witnessed psychic phenomena. They agree that some shamans are tricksters, but deny that all shamans are only tricksters. From their perspective, the problem is that Bogoras “was never able to break through his scientific training and bias to admit that he had witnessed the miraculous….he explained that everything he witnessed was no doubt due to trickery, though he never offered any hint as to how the feats could have been fraudulently performed.”312
Another clash of interpretations centers on the practice of fire walking. Long practiced by native peoples, including shamans, fire walking has recently become popular in the West, where the debate over competing explanations has become heated, so to speak. Enthusiasts such as Eliade suggest that the ability, at least among shamans, is due to special skills and training.
Skeptics explain the ability to walk on hot coals in purely physical terms. For example, coal can be very hot, yet the fact that it has a low conductivity and capacitance (heat storage capacity) means that relatively little heat is conducted to the foot. They also emphasize the brief time that the foot is actually in contact with the coal and the so-called “Leidenfrost effect,” which suggests that evaporation of sweat on the soles of the feet may provide a micro-layer of insulating water and steam. In between are people like Charles Tart, who argues that physical mechanisms may be supplemented by protective effects of ASCs, which reduce inflammation and blistering.356
These conflicting interpretations epitomize a central problem of the debate over parapsychology. Most people decide the issue on the basis of their prior beliefs rather than on a considered evaluation of the research. Actually this problem is not unique to parapsychology; it riddles and ruins debate in many controversial scientific areas.54 Consequently, for true believers, shamans are “psi masters….veritable early warning systems for their peoples”;404 for skeptics, psi is clearly impossible and shamans must therefore be charlatans. Opinions run very strong in this area, and the opinions are usually based on strong convictions and little evidence.
Let us therefore turn from opinions to data and ask what, if any, evidence beyond anecdotal reports we have of psychic abilities in shamans. Two types of evidence need to be examined: theoretical and experimental.
Theoretical Considerations
Theoretical support comes from a novel reinterpretation. Michael Winkelman points out that the conditions employed in tribal magic rituals—such as ASCs, visualizations, and positive expectations—parallel those supposed to facilitate psi.415 Conceivably, trial and error led tribal peoples to adopt ritual forms that favor psi. The argument is far from conclusive, but Winkelman deserves credit for having the courage to suggest it, since, of course, he was loudly lambasted by critics.
Experimental Studies
If psi does occur in shamanic practices, it could be of two kinds: a psychokinetic (PK) effect, such as accelerated healing, or an extrasensory ability to acquire information.
There have been two reports of significant PK effects in healers that the researchers called “shamans.”115, 318 However, the healers did not fit the definition of shamanism used here, and the studies did not test PK effects on actual healing. Consequently, the question of whether shamans ever successfully use PK to enhance healing cannot be answered at this time. The best we can do is to examine research on other types of healers. If they can demonstrate PK-enhanced healing, then perhaps shamans can too. As we will see, considerable research has been done.
The other parapsychological ability that might be involved in shamanic healing is extrasensory perception (ESP or clairvoyance). Certainly shamans claim to perceive things unseen by ordinary people. Indeed, the development of spirit vision is central to shamanic training and essential for diagnostic and healing work.
Despite the importance of spirit vision to tribal healers, there have been few experiments on it. Two studies of so-called Afro-Brazilian “shamans”114, 116 seem to have actually observed mediums who became possessed by spirits, but did not usually engage in soul flight. They were asked to identify unknown objects located at a distance, but showed no evidence of ESP, and in one study they scored significantly worse than the controls.114, 115
These negative findings are not surprising since the tests were artificial, and subjects performed in an ordinary state of consciousness. Mediums and shamans usually claim that their psi abilities are enhanced in ASCs, and so it remains possible that true shamans sometimes display psi abilities in ASCs.
Since shamans claim that psychic ability is greater in altered states, it is not surprising that psychedelics are used as diagnostic aids. In Latin America, yage (ayahuasca) is regarded as particularly potent, and shamans use it regularly to assist with diagnosis and journeys.72 Several anthropologists have reported possible ayahuasca-induced psi, and the plant from which yage is produced is called “the visionary vine.”72, 350
However, despite such tantalizing stories, no experiments have been done on shamans’ psychic abilities after taking psychedelics. To learn more we must turn to research in the West. Stan Grof states that “in my own clinical experience, various phenomena suggesting extrasensory perception are relatively frequent in LSD psychotherapy, particularly in advanced sessions….Every LSD therapist with sufficient clinical experience has collected enough challenging observations to take this problem seriously.”133
Verifying such clinical observations requires controlled laboratory studies, but the results are largely negative. While occasional subjects scored well, overall there was no significant effect.133
Of course, these could be false negatives. Unlike shamans, the experimental subjects were not trained in either ASCs or psi. The negative findings could also reflect the uninteresting nature of the experiment and the enormous difficulties that subjects have concentrating. Psychedelics produce a cavalcade of dramatic images and overpowering emotions, so it is hardly surprising that subjects report great difficulty and little interest in focusing on experiments that, by comparison, seem utterly trivial and boring.
There is also a danger of false positives. Psychedelic experiences can be truly mind boggling and belief shattering. Anyone who doubts this statement is invited to read Stan Grof’s books, including When the Impossible Happens.134 In fact, psychedelic experiences can be so powerful, their insights so compelling, and their apparent certainty so convincing, that many a novice has come away convinced of the earth-shattering importance and undeniable validity of their insights. This is one reason why so many spiritual teachers, both indigenous and Western, recommend that psychedelics be used only in the context of an ongoing spiritual discipline and that any insights should be adjudicated by teachers and further spiritual practice.388, 396
Not surprisingly, Westerners exploring psychedelic shamanism, yet ignoring these caveats, have come up with some wild theories. After some hefty doses of ayahuasca, Fred AlanWolf attempted to marry shamanism and quantum physics and claimed to have found, in the words of his book’s subtitle, “the scientific truth at the heart of the shamanic world.”420 Likewise, Jeremy Narby speculated that the visions of intertwined serpents found across cultures and fueled by ayahuasca reflect insights into the helical structure of DNA252 and that the DNA is trying to communicate with us. Maybe, but then again…
Psychedelic insights can be valid and valuable, but they can also be compelling and wrong. Proceed with caution!
Let’s summarize the evidence for claims that psychedelics can enhance psi. There are many anecdotal reports of psychedelic enhancement of psi abilities in shamans and clinical subjects, but this is not something that occurs regularly in laboratory situations. Whether it occurs at all, and whether it can be harnessed by shamans, remains to be proven.
PARAPSYCHOLOGY MEETS THE LABORATORY
Anecdotes can be intriguing and field studies fascinating, but the fate of parapsychology will be settled in the laboratory. Only impeccably designed, exquisitely controlled, and reliably repeated experiments will be enough to convince believers or skeptics one way or the other, if anything can. What does laboratory research tell us?
For over a century, parapsychology limped along collecting case reports and doing individual studies of such things as card guessing and influencing the throw of dice. A sizable percentage of studies reported significant findings, but virtually no skeptics were convinced. They routinely complained that the studies were unreliable, poorly designed, statistically flawed, due to experimental fraud, or outright impossible. Then came a revolutionary statistical technique.
Meta-Analysis
Meta-analysis combines and analyzes many studies simultaneously and can therefore discern trends that individual experiments easily overlook. Not surprisingly, meta-analysis is revolutionizing research in many fields, and one of them is parapsychology. What does it reveal?
Experimental Findings
Psychic abilities, if such they be, are usually divided into two major categories: “receptive” telepathy or clairvoyance and “active” psychokinesis (PK). Actually it turns out to be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish telepathy, in which information is supposedly acquired from another mind, from clairvoyance, in which acquired information is not dependent on another mind.
Studies of clairvoyance have typically used three methods: card tests, remote viewing, and Ganzfeld studies. In card tests, subjects are asked to “guess” which of a set of cards has been selected (these days usually automatically by a computer). Meta-analysis of all studies conducted from 1882 revealed odds against chance of more than a billion trillion to one.291 Since experimental odds of one hundred to one are usually considered sufficient to establish a phenomenon, these results are obviously astronomically high.
Analyses of remote viewing have also been highly positive. In 1995, the CIA commissioned a review of all remote viewing research that had been sponsored by the U.S. government. Even the skeptic on the review team acknowledged that the results could not be dismissed as mere chance.291
The Ganzfeld is an experiment in which receivers first relax in a state of sensory isolation. They are then asked to describe, and subsequently identify from an array of choices, a video played in another room. Several meta-analyses have been conducted. The general consensus seems to be that the phenomenon is not always replicable but that the results remain positive even as the quality of studies has improved over the years.273, 291
The results of PK are also positive. Subjects appear able to exert small influences on both falling dice and atomic random number generators (RNGs) and to speed healing. Meta-analyses of RNGs analyzed 597 experimental studies done up to 1987 and produced astronomical odds against chance of over a trillion to one.291
In summary, meta-analysis reveals highly significant effects for diverse experiments of both ESP and PK. However, the effects are relatively small, not always reproducible in any single experiment, and they remain the subject of intense debate.6
Prayer
“Prayer is good medicine” proclaims the title of a book by the noted physician Larry Dossey.76 A majority of the population agrees and periodically prays for health benefits. Being prayed for could obviously make a person feel cared for and elicit a placebo effect, but could it have other benefits on disease and mortality?
To the surprise of hardheaded skeptics, a few experiments suggested it could.41 Needless to say, they excited considerable controversy and much media attention. However, better designed follow-up studies have been less favorable, 14 and health benefits from intercessory prayer remain unproven.203
Factors Affecting Psi
Most psi researchers feel that the battle has been won, that psi has been demonstrated, and it is time to move on to more interesting questions. The University of California statistician, Jessica Utts, concluded from a review of formerly secret CIA research:
The statistical results of the studies examined are far beyond what is expected by chance. Arguments that these results could be due to methodological flaws in the experiments are soundly refuted….It is recommended that future experiments focus on understanding how this phenomenon works, and on how to make it as useful as possible. There is little benefit to continuing experiments designed to offer proof.291
So what have researchers learned about how psi works? Three kinds of factors seem to affect it: individual differences between people, subjective psychological factors, and physical environmental factors.
Individual Differences: A consistent finding is the famous “sheep-goat effect.” Sheep (those who believe in psi) tend to score positively. However, goats (those who disbelieve in it) tend to score at chance or, most intriguingly, below chance. Those below chance scores suggest that the goats are actually picking up psi cues, but are giving opposite answers so as to unconsciously support their belief that psi does not exist.
A small minority of gifted people consistently score well on psi tests, such as remote viewing, while most people do not. Moreover, gifted subjects seem to be born, not made, and neither practice nor training consistently improves remote viewing ability.
Psychological Factors: In fact, practice can be detrimental. Many parapsychology experiments are long, repetitive, and boring. Not surprisingly, subjects commonly show a “fatigue effect” in which their scores drop off the longer the experiment drones on.
However, two things can help. Receiving immediate feedback—being told how well you are doing—can help maintain interest. Altered states of consciousness—such as relaxation, hypnosis, and meditation—also increase psi scores, and this is obviously relevant to shamans who commonly enter ASCs before making diagnoses.
Physical Factors: Physical factors can also exert an influence. For example, when the earth’s magnetic field is particularly active, traffic and industrial accidents rise and psi scores plummet.291
Two final physical factors are utterly mysterious. The first is sidereal time: a measure of the earth’s rotation relative to the stars. For reasons quite unknown, psi scores vary dramatically according to sidereal time.66 Second, contrary to all other types of signals, psi scores do not seem to depend on distance from the target. People a thousand miles away may score as well as people in the next room. In short, psi scores seem to vary in systematic ways depending on the individual, his or her state of mind, and aspects of the physical environment, but not with distance.ab
Despite many valiant attempts, there are no accepted theories to explain psi.292 If such a theory does arise, it will probably call many laws of physics, principles of psychology, and understandings of reality into question, which, of course, is why psi is so vehemently opposed by many academics.
The Contrast with Astrology
The fault, dear Brutus is not in our stars, but in our selves.
—Shakespeare, Julius Caesar
Hard-core critics who know little about experimentation or statistics might attempt to dismiss the research support for parapsychology by saying that if you look hard enough for anything, you’ll find it. But that is simply not so, at least for good research.
For contrast, consider astrology. If simply doing large numbers of experiments was sufficient to produce positive findings, then we would certainly expect them for astrology. Its claims have been put to over five hundred experimental tests, yet the findings are uniformly and devastatingly negative.66
But what about meta-analyses? Perhaps, like parapsychology, the findings are so subtle that they escape individual studies. In fact, several meta-analyses have been done, and none have found any support for astrology.
Astrologers seem to carefully ignore these distasteful facts. The usual defense, where there is one, is that science cannot test the dimensions most relevant to astrology. But while science cannot test all astrological claims—some are metaphysical or too vague to be measurable—it can test some of the most crucial, and in every case astrology has failed dramatically.ac, ad
This does not mean that astrology is never helpful. Since people can be surprisingly effective at rapidly assessing strangers from all sorts of subtle cues,112 astrologers can sometimes give impressively insightful readings that appear to validate their charts. They can also use the chart as a projective technique similar to divinatory techniques employed throughout history. Sensitive astrologers can therefore offer valuable care, empathy, and support. This shamans can certainly offer, and since astrology is not an essential element of their practices, its negative findings do not diminish their claims.
Implications of Laboratory Research
Experimental research seems to support the validity of some parapsychology claims and to deny the validity of astrological claims. Both sets of findings meet with considerable resistance, because the real issue underlying such resistance is that in each case the findings jeopardize their opponents’ belief system and understanding of reality. As such, they represent a metaphysical and mortal threat. Since we identify with our belief system, a death threat to it is experienced as a death threat to us, and we will therefore fight tooth and nail to preserve our image of the cosmos and of our self.
CONCLUSIONS ABOUT PSI AND SHAMANS
Having surveyed ethnographic, clinical, and laboratory research, what can we conclude about the possibility that shamans employ psi in their diagnostic and healing work? Certainly there are some remarkable anecdotal reports of psi in shamans and other native healers. In addition, the conditions used in tribal magic rituals often correspond to those reported to facilitate psi, and many laboratory studies and meta-analyses seem supportive of psi. However, as yet we have no good experimental studies of shamans. Therefore, for those whose minds remain open, the question of whether psi plays a role in shamanism also remains open.