Introduction: Evidence for entheogen use in prehistory and world religions
Author: Michael Winkelman
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1556/2054.2019.024
Publication Date: 01 Jun 2019
Online Publication Date: 13 Sep 2019
Abstract
This introduction to the special issue reviews research that supports the hypothesis that psychedelics, particularly psilocybin, were central features in the development of religion. The greater response of the human serotonergic system to psychedelics than is the case for chimpanzees’ serotonergic receptors indicates that these substances were environmental factors that affected hominin evolution. These substances also contributed to the evolution of ritual capacities, shamanism, and the associated alterations of consciousness. The role of psilocybin mushrooms in the ancient evolution of human religions is attested to fungiform petroglyphs, rock artifacts, and mythologies from all major regions of the world. This prehistoric mycolatry persisted into the historic era in the major religious traditions of the world, which often left evidence of these practices in sculpture, art, and scriptures. This continuation of entheogenic practices in the historical world is addressed in the articles here. But even through new entheogenic combinations were introduced, complex societies generally removed entheogens from widespread consumption, restricted them in private and exclusive spiritual practices of the leaders, and often carried out repressive punishment of those who engaged in entheogenic practices.
Introduction: Psychedelic Use in Human Antiquity
When human ancestors first intentionally ingested psychedelics will forever remain unknown, but what is certain is that millions of years ago hominins encountered psilocybin-containing mushroom species across the temperate regions of the world and undoubtedly consumed them. Just when our ancestors began to deliberately use these conscious-altering substances in rituals will never be known with certainty. However, we can be reasonably certain that more than a million years ago, our Homo habilis and Homo erectus ancestors and their mimetic capacity expressed in group song and dancing expanded beyond the nighttime displays characteristic of hominids (Donald, 1991; Dunbar, 2014; Winkelman, 2009, 2010a, 2010c, 2015) as they were extended by the effects of psychedelic mushrooms. This expanded visionary ritual capacity set the foundations for the emergence of shamanism and the deliberate use of psychoactive plants to enhance ritual activities and visionary experiences.
The evidence for the ancient ritual consumption of psychedelic plants and their influence on human evolution is partially substantiated by the converging evidence reviewed here:
1.Psilocybin-containing species are found virtually in all regions of the world and stretching back millions of years, as evidenced in psilocybin-containing species unique to each of the major regions of the world;
2.the enhanced binding of the human serotonin receptors with psychedelics;
3.shamanic traditions of ritual use of sacred mushrooms and other psychedelic substances that have great antiquity, as attested to language, art, petroglyphs, and stone sculptures of fungiform figures that often closely resemble the observable features of local psilocybin-containing mushroom species; and
4.ancient psychedelic mushroom use attested to in artifacts from religious traditions in all of the major regions of the world.
Worldwide psilocybin mushroom species.
The human engagement with psychedelics was inevitable in the form of psilocybin-containing mushrooms. The widespread presence of species containing psilocybin across most ecozones (Guzmán, 2005, 2009; Guzmán, Allen, & Gartz, 1998; Stamets, 1996) indicates that they were widely present as environmental influences affecting hominin adaptations across the major inhabitable regions of the earth for millions of years. There is a worldwide distribution of psychedelic fungi, especially the psilocybin-containing species, as well as other fungi that are used as entheogens. Psychoactive fungi are found across most ecozones. In the Americas, they have been noted as far north as Alaska and as far south as Chile; other Southern Hemisphere extremities include Australia and New Zealand. The presence of psilocybin-containing species across the tropics and extending far into northern latitudes assured that our various ancestor species commonly encountered and ingested psilocybin-containing mushrooms.
The premodern worldwide distribution of psychedelic mushrooms is illustrated by regionally specific species. In addition to species unique to Thailand (Psilocybe samuiensis), New Zealand (Psilocybe aucklandii), Australia (Psilocybe australiana and Psilocybe subaeruginosa), Japan (Psilocybe argentipes and Psilocybe subcaerulipes), and Africa (Panaeolus africanus and Psilocybe natalensis), there are psychoactive fungi that are distributed across major regions of the earth such as the Northern Hemisphere, Eurasia, tropical and subtropical zones, and the Arctic and Alpine areas (Guzmán et al., 1998). This distribution, especially the numerous region-specific species that attest to their ancient presence, shows the inevitability of worldwide premodern exposure of hominins to psychedelic species.
Psychedelic influences in hominin evolution
The evidence for psychedelic influences in hominin antiquity is indirect, but undeniable with the weight of diverse forms of evidence. Humans have a long-term evolutionary relationship with psychotropic plant substances, a relationship that resulted from their selective effects on human evolution (Sullivan & Hagen, 2002). There were a variety of ancient exposures to plant substances that effected human evolution, with our ancestors acquiring fitness benefits as a consequence of the use of psychoactive substances (Sullivan, Hagen, & Hammerstein, 2008).
The use of psychedelics exemplifies these enhancements of neurotransmitter functions as a consequence of their ingestion in plant sources. Evidence for the influences of psychedelics on human evolution is found in the greater sensitivity of the binding of psychedelics with the human serotonergic system than is the case for chimpanzees (Pregenzer, Alberts, Bock, Slightom, & Im, 1997). These differences reflect the survival advantages that resulted from their use and the consequent selection for those ancestors with an enhanced capacity to utilize these exogenous analogues of the serotonergic neurotransmitters, influencing a major neuromodulatory system. The human–chimpanzees differences in the sensitivity of response of the serotonergic system establish that there were ancient hominin adaptations involving selection for those ancestors in the hominin line that had a capacity for enhanced binding with psychedelics.
Hominin adaptations to the secondary metabolites of fungi, particularly distinguishing among toxic species, food sources, and consciousness-altering psychedelic species, were significant for human survival. Consequently, human ancestors underwent a multimillion year process of acquiring biological and eventually cultural adaptations to distinguish among mushroom species and their appropriate use. These experiences could have functioned as selective factors in the evolution of specific characteristics of the human brain, our neurotransmitter systems, and our innate psychology that could best exploit these serotonin- and dopamine-enhancing effects.
These psychoactive effects were inevitably incorporated into the central dynamics of shamanic rituals, attested to in the diverse species used as sacraments or entheogens in cultures around the world (see Rätsch, 2005; Schultes, Hofmann, & Rätsch, 1992). Shamanism was central to premodern ritual practices, attested to in the worldwide presence of shamanism in foraging societies (Winkelman, 1992). This ritual activity was central to many aspects of human adaptation and evolution, including subsistence, social organization, healing, cosmology, and symbolic cognition (Winkelman, 2010a).
Entheogens in shamanic origins
Shamanism was central to premodern ritual practices worldwide, attested to the presence of remarkably similar shamanistic practices and beliefs in foraging societies cross-culturally (Winkelman, 1992, 2010a, 2010b). The entheogenic contributions to the origins and evolution of shamanic practices are indicated by the substantial parallels between the basic principles of shamanism and the experiences induced by psilocybin mushrooms and other psychedelics. Ethnographic accounts reveal repetitive features associated with the ritual use of psychedelics in cultures around the world (Dobkin de Rios, 1984; Winkelman, 2007). These include the belief that they are:
1. –entheogenic, inducing an internal sense of spiritual presence;
2. –provide access to a spiritual world, the supernatural, bringing the world of mythic beliefs into experience;
3. –produce an experience of one’s soul or spirit and its separation from the body and travel to the supernatural world;
4. –cause experiences of the activation of powers within and outside of the person;
5. –induce experiences of relationships with animals and at times the sense of transformation into an animal;
6. –provoke experiences of ego death followed by transformation or rebirth;
7. –provide information through visions;
8. –engage healing, especially through the dramatic ritual evocation of emotional experiences; and
9. –provide processes for group integration and enhanced social cohesion.
Guerra-Doce (2006, 2015) similarly notes that the predominant model of entheogenic consumption in foraging societies is associated with shamanic practices, where the shaman consumes the sacrament to enhance the healer’s spiritual force and divinatory capacity for purposes of healing. These entheogenic practices generally occur in a communal ritual context with the attendance of the entire local group, who are often subjected to the conditions of ritual-fasting, as well as the experiences from drumming, singing, and clapping and overnight vigil. These ritual practices enhance the effects of the entheogen in producing experiences of communication with divinities for a range of objectives. These include: diagnoses of disease and guiding treatment; establishing contact with the ancestors to obtain advice; seeking advice from the spirits regarding plans for the future; acquiring information regarding hunting and about missing family members; and seeking to influence spiritual forces to enhance well-being.
The institutionalization of the effects of psilocybin within communal ritual practices was inevitable foundational influences in the evolution of human religiosity, as well as significant aspects of our evolved psychology (Winkelman, 2010a, 2013). Psychoactive substances were inevitably incorporated into the central dynamics of shamanic and religious rituals, attested to in the diverse species used as sacraments or entheogens in cultures around the world (see Dobkin de Rios, 1984; Rätsch, 2005; Schultes et al., 1992). Shamanism provided the cosmological and ritual context within which the experiences induced by psychedelics were incorporated into human culture, and through their selective effects, into humans’ innate psychology (Winkelman, 2010a, 2013, 2014a, 2014b). These influences also contributed to the development of ritual healing practices, exploiting principles that were part of the formation of our evolved sociality and psychology (Winkelman, 2015). These shamanic activities played a key role in the evolution of hominins (Winkelman, 2010c) and the evolution of modern human cultural during the Middle/Upper Paleolithic some 50,000 years ago (Winkelman, 2002).
Rossano (2007, 2009, 2011) points out that the interaction of shamanic ritual context with the evolution of the human brain contributed to selection for susceptibility to hypnotic and placebo effects. The well-known “suggestibility” and contextual effects (set and setting) produced by psychedelics indicate that their use would have also contributed to these tendencies to be influenced by the expectations of others. This selection occurred because of the health benefits provided by the mental states that enhanced susceptibility to ritual healing and the ability to use alternate identities, supernatural beliefs, and internalization of the expectations of others to produce beneficial internal states. This ritual context also selected for greater propensities for a variety of personal, interpersonal, and cognitive responses that enhanced ritual healing processes.
Psychedelics enhanced the survival and reproduction of those who could best exploit and benefit from their effects; consequently, psychedelics operated as environmental factors that selected for those who had greater degrees of those innate qualities that were elicited by the neurobehavioral effects of psychedelic and exploited by ritual processes. The selective effects of psychedelics exercised their influences in the context of enhanced capacities for participation in ritual and healing activities. These involved the enhanced cognitive states that were produced by the effects of psychedelics (enhanced serotonin and its effects of brain function; see Winkelman, 2014b, 2017b).
Humans have sought out not only psychedelic mushrooms for their consciousness altering properties, but a wide variety of plant substances as well. While a principal conceptualization of psychedelics is that they involve the ethnobotanical (and chemical) substances with action on the serotonin 5HT2 receptors (such as psilocybin, ergots, ayahuasca, and bufotenine), the visionary and entheogenic substances are not limited to this class of action. Visionary and entheogenic experiences are produced by diverse classes of plants and their respective neurochemicals and their effects on diverse neurotransmitter systems, not only serotonin, but also dopamine, endocannabinoids, GABA, muscarine, and others (see Winkelman, 2017a, 2017b for review). The human potential for entheogenic experiences and visionary encounters appears to reflect innate properties of our nervous system, a potential elicited by many different drug and non-drug mechanisms (also see Winkelman, 2011). This human search for drug-induced spiritual encounters has an intimate relationship with our evolved psychology (Winkelman, 2013, 2014a, 2014b) and has led humans to discover many different plant substances for altering consciousness.
The antiquity of Homo sapiens’ relationships with psychoactive plants
In his paper here on “The oldest archaeological data evidencing the relationship of H. sapiens with psychoactive plants,” Giorgio Samorini provides a worldwide overview of what we know about the prehistory of entheogenic practices. As modern instruments become increasingly sophisticated and sensitive, they are capable of detecting the presence of miniscule quantities of psychoactive plant sources in various archeological materials. These varied approaches (also see Fitzpatrick, 2018) are providing hard evidence of the antiquity of humanity’s use of botanical agents known for their ability to induce alterations of consciousness. Samorini’s review of the archeological literature on the presence of psychoactive plant sources shows evidence of H. sapiens’ relationship with psychoactive plant sources going back nearly 10,000 years. This synthesis regarding the earliest knowledge of the main psychoactive plant sources of the world indicates the antiquity of use of diverse plants sources, but not always providing certain knowledge regarding their mode of use (i.e., intoxicant, food, or material).
A more pressing question for Samorini’s findings is whether the use of these plant substances was for entheogenic purposes or for other reasons. In some sense, these questions might always remain ambiguous, but from the perspective of the entheogenic paradigm, the meaning of the facts is less ambiguous. If our distant ancestors deliberately left psychoactive substances in graves and other deposits, is there a fundamental ambiguity regarding what the message is here? The limited grave goods attest to the substantial significance that people placed in these objects, and more so, their implications for concepts of the spiritual and afterlife. Burials are intrinsically entheogenic in their intentions, an unequivocal statement that people perceived these substances as central to relationships with the spiritual and the afterlife. The presence of mushroom representations is particularly powerful evidence in this regard, attesting to a central concern with entheogenic experiences. There is no reason to presume that the fungiform representations were depictions of culinary activities or incidental environmental features. The inclusion of mushroom effigies in burial goods and ritual artifacts attests directly to their significance in the production of entheogenic experiences. Proposals of non-entheogenic purposes to ancient mushroom representations face the burden of proof and ought to be backed by evidence, not just offered as speculations.
The diversity of psychoactive plant substances used in the past as indicated in Samorini’s review here makes an important point. The widespread use of diverse plant substances and psychoactive ingredients to evoke common themes of entheogenic experience and shamanism reveals that what is important about these agents is not many different and specific forms of psychophysiological action, but rather the common shift in consciousness that is produced by many different psychoactive agents and mechanisms (Winkelman, 2011, 2017a). It is the general principle of the alteration of consciousness, which is relevant to understanding entheogenic experiences. While the specific substances used may not conform to the “classic psychedelic” – those acting at the 5HT-2 serotonin receptors – the real issue is their visionary and entheogenic capacities, induced through a variety of pathways or mechanisms, but resulting in a common physiological condition of organismic operation (an integrative mode of consciousness; Winkelman, 2011).
As Fitzpatrick and Merlin (2018) point out, while humans’ use of psychoactive substances falls into many different pharmaceutical categories (i.e., inebriants, stimulants, opiates, narcotics, hallucinogens, etc.), ethnographic analogies suggest that their use in the past generally shares a common entheogenic function of divine communication, even if the substances involved are not generally considered to be hallucinogenic or psychedelic (acting at 5HT2 serotonin receptors). The classification of the use of these diverse psychoactive substances as entheogenic in purpose is appropriate, given the typical perspectives of most cultures toward the use of varied classes of psychoactive substances that are employed to enhance experiences of contact with deities and supernatural forces. An entheogenic perspective may be valid even in the cases of substances with recognized alcohol content because of the widespread practice of mixing other psychoactive substances in the fermentation process to enhance the effects.
The integrative mode of consciousness emerges with the elevation of ancient brain functions by diverse process that promotes psychodynamic growth and cognitive, social, and psychological integration. Diverse ritual activities induce this integrative mode of consciousness, stimulating the autonomic nervous system through extensive ergotropic (sympathetic) activation until collapse into a trophotropic (parasympathetic) dominant state with a slowing of the brain waves into a more synchronized and coherent pattern (see Winkelman, 2011 for review). This extreme parasympathetic state is a recuperative state of the body, a state of extreme relaxation culminating in sleep and unconsciousness that restores homeostatic balance and evokes endogenous healing responses, especially through reduction of stress responses. This shift to parasympathetic dominance is also accompanied by a shift from left-hemisphere- to right-hemisphere-dominated brain processes and from frontal brain activity to predominant brain wave patterns emanating from lower brain structures. Winkelman (2017a, 2018) has reviewed evidence indicating that these diverse entheogenic substances result in the stimulation of innate modular structures and intelligences that provide the central features of spirit encounters.
The human search for chemically enhanced consciousness as a better conduit to experience divinity is a virtual universal of human cultures. And as will be illustrated in a number of articles below, this development likely began with the most easily available sources – psychedelic mushrooms – which were later supplanted by more complex combinations of plants. This primordial use of mushrooms as entheogens is illustrated by findings of fungiform artifacts from all of the major areas of the world, as seen in the following section of this introduction. While far from exhaustive, it establishes that there existed ancient spiritual practices in all of the major regions of the world that were entheomycological, finding entheogenic inspiration in locally available psychedelic fungi.
Mushroom and Entheogenic Cults of the Past
By their nature, mushrooms are hard to detect in the archeological record, as their fleshy substance largely composed of water quickly deteriorates and leaves little if any physical trace. Consequently, the evidence regarding the roles of psychedelic mushrooms in cultural activities of the past involves fungiform representations in petroglyphs, rock art, sculptures, and metal artifacts found in cultures around the world. Samorini (2012) reviewed a wide range of mushroom forms found in cultures around the world, showing that mycolatry is a widespread ancient practice. Psychedelic mushrooms were encountered in most of the habitable regions of the world and displayed in ways that indicate that they were central features of early ritual systems. Their significance led their practitioners to capture the source of their experiences and their significance by producing images on stone.
Hier geht es weiter.[Journal of Psychedelic Studies] Introduction
Evidence for entheogen use in prehistory and world religions.pdf