What are the origins of shamanism, and what is its future? Do shamans believe in their powers? What exactly is trance? What can we learn from indigenous healing practices?
Traveling from Indonesia to the Colombian Amazon, living with shamans and observing music, drug use, and indigenous curing ceremonies, anthropologist Manvir Singh journeys into one of the most mysterious religious traditions. Fundamentally, shamans are specialists who use altered states to engage with unseen realms and provide services like healing and divination. As Singh shows, shamanism’s appeal stems from its psychological resonance. Its essence is spiritual transformation: a specialist uses initiations, deprivation, and non-ordinary states to seemingly become a different kind of human, one possessed of powers to cure, prophesy, and otherwise tame life’s uncertainties.
Following a fascinating cast of characters, Singh reveals the complexities and vicissitudes of a timeless, always relevant, and ubiquitous phenomenon. He argues that biomedicine can learn from shamanic practices and that psychedelic enthusiasts completely misrepresent history. He also shows that shamanic traditions will forever re-emerge – and that by contemplating humanity’s oldest spiritual practice, we come to better understand ourselves, our history, and our future.
Learn more and purchase the book here!
MANVIR SINGH is an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of California, Davis. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Brown University and a PhD in human evolutionary biology from Harvard University. He is a regular contributor to The New Yorker, and his writings have also appeared in Wired, Vice, Aeon, and The Guardian, as well as in leading academic journals, including Science, Nature Human Behaviour, and Behavioral and Brain Sciences. He has studied the use of psychedelics in the rain forests of Colombia and, since 2014, has conducted ethnographic fieldwork with Mentawai communities on Siberut Island, Indonesia, focusing on shamanism and justice. He lives with his wife and daughter in Davis, California.
“Brilliantly traces the evolution of shamanism across history. . . . Singh makes especially insightful points about how shamanism has engaged in a somewhat contradictory dance with religion, first influencing it and then threatening to siphon away adherents who crave a rawer spiritual experience. . . . Combining meticulous research and an excellent grasp of psychological and sociocultural theories, Singh paints a panoramic portrait of a little-understood subject.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“What a pleasure to read a book so broad and deep, including as it does both a history of shamanism and a provocative vision of how it manifests in our world today. Shifting easily between personal experience and scholarship, Singh weaves an instructive and entertaining story.”
—Kim Stanley Robinson, New York Times bestselling author of The Ministry for the Future
“What does the practice of shamanism tell us about how the mind works? Through vivid field encounters and cutting-edge research, Manvir Singh shows that shamanism is a psychological universal, emerging wherever humans gather, from Amazonian healing ceremonies to Wall Street trading floors. Singh is a brilliant young scholar and a gifted writer, and the remarkable book will change how you think about religion, spirituality, consciousness, and human nature.”
—Paul Bloom, Professor of Psychology at the University of Toronto, Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Yale University, and author of Psych: The Story of the Human Mind
“Deftly interweaving memoir, journalism, his own anthropological fieldwork, and cutting-edge archaeology, Manvir Singh's Shamanism provides a bracing new look at one of our species' oldest and most characteristically human experiences—reaching into the spiritual realm through the powerful figure of the shaman. Traveling from the Indonesian forest to the wilds of Burning Man, Singh takes us deep into history and the human heart, showing us that this ancient religion is very much present in our lives today.”
—Charles C. Mann, author of The Wizard and the Prophet
“Singh’s Shamanism is a fast-paced, erudite, lyrical adventure through time and space that explores who shamans are, where they come from, what they do, and why we believe—or don’t—in their supposed powers. This wildly enjoyable book will transform how you think about the human mind and the nature of culture.”
—Daniel E. Liebermann, bestselling author of The Story of the Human Body
“Singh’s analysis of the timeless appeal of one of humanity’s most peculiar practices is a gripping read. Shamanism is both a convincing explanation of enigmatic behavior in unfamiliar societies and a seductive gateway to rethinking some of the oddities of life in contemporary globalized cultures.”
—Richard Wrangham, Professor of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University and author of The Goodness Paradox
