Hostname: page-component-6766d58669-r8qmj Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-05-24T03:11:07.545Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Missing links: The psychology and epidemiology of shamanistic beliefs

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 April 2018

Pascal Boyer
Pascal Boyer*
Affiliation:
Departments of Psychology and Anthropology, Washington University, St. Louis, MO 63130. pboyer@wustl.edu http://www.pascalboyer.net
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Singh provides the skeletal elements of a possible account of shamanism-like beliefs in many human societies. To be developed into a proper theory, this model needs to be supplemented at several crucial points, in terms of anthropological evidence, psychological processes, and cultural transmission.

Information

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 41 , 2018 , e71
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.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Boyd, R. & Richerson, P. J. (1985) Culture and the evolutionary process. University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Claidière, N., Scott-Phillips, T. C. & Sperber, D. (2014) How Darwinian is cultural evolution? Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 369(1642):20130368. doi:10.1098/rstb.2013.0368.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Claidière, N. & Sperber, D. (2007) The role of attraction in cultural evolution. Journal of Cognition and Culture 7(1–2):89–111.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, E. (2007) The mind possessed: The cognition of spirit possession in an Afro-Brazilian religious tradition. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crocker, J. C. (1985) Vital souls: Bororo cosmology, natural symbolism and shamanism. University of Arizona Press.Google Scholar
Gellner, D. N. (1994) Priests, healers, mediums and witches: The context of possession in the Kathmandu Valley, Nepal. Man 29(1):27–48.Google Scholar
Hamayon, R. (2003) Game and games: Fortune and dualism in Siberian shamanism. In: Shamanism: A reader, ed. Harvey, G., pp. 63–68. Routledge.Google Scholar
Hugh-Jones, S. (1996) Shamans, prophets, priests and pastors. In: Shamanism, history, and the state, ed. Thomas, N. & Humphrey, C., pp. 32–74. University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Mallart Guimerà, L. (2003) La forêt de nos ancêtres. MusÈe royal de l'Afrique centrale.Google Scholar
Stepanoff, C. (2014) Chamanisme, rituel et cognition chez les Touvas de Sibérie du Sud. Editions de la Mison des Sciences de l'Homme.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vitebsky, P. (1995b) The shaman: Voyages of the soul, trance, ecstasy and healing from Siberia to the Amazon. Macmillan.Google Scholar