Do shamans and other people having religious experiences have a potential mental disorder?

9-10ths_Penguin said:

I think that "ecstatic religious experiences" are indicative of a malfunctioning brain, but this doesn't necessarily mean mental illness.

IMO, a lot of people induce a brain state that produces "religious experiences" with physiological stress (e.g. a sweat lodge, prolonged meditation, certain breathing techniques) or chemicals (i.e. "entheogenic" drugs).

I'm sure that there are some "shamans" who experience mental illness, but I think a lot are mentally healthy people who are just good at inducing an altered state.

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Heyo said:

The shaman enters freely into the altered state of mind, often through the use of drugs or exhausting physical rituals. That is a totally different thing to people whose brain snaps into such a state randomly. The later may be a mental disorder, the former not.

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Muffled said:

I believe that is a materialistic view.

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Muffled said:

Some mental problems actually are spiritual problems. The thing is that there is a material connection to the spiritual realm and that can get out of control and that is the reason medicines work.

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9-10ths_Penguin said:

There's also:

Knowledge - we just know how things work better now. For instance, a few centuries ago, when presented with people who claimed to speak with God, we may not have had the tools to identify ergot poisoning or understand its effects, but now we do.

There's a lot of "God of the gaps" stuff going on with so-called mystical experiences.

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Quintessence said:

Setting aside that this isn't an either-or to begin with, how does this relate to the tendency for modern society to needlessly pathologize our lives (aka, to nitpick pretty benign things as problems or wrongness), including but not limited to for "so-called" mystical experiences?

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9-10ths_Penguin said:

Why do you see this as "pathologizing"? Is it the social stigma around drug use and "getting high" or is it something else? Personally, I don't see how attributing an experience to a chemical or physiological cause - as opposed to the hand of God - implies that the experience is bad.

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Quintessence said:

I don't - you responded to a post of mine that listed out three factors that contribute to the pathologizing interactions with the otherworlds (aka, shamanic and mystical/religious experiences). You added a fourth - knowledge - so naturally I assumed you viewed this as contributing to pathologizing (aka, rendering as "mental illness") of mystical/religious experiences. I didn't understand that and thought it was weird, so I asked you to elaborate on why knowledge pathologizes experiences. Apparently you didn't mean to imply that knowledge is a cause of contemporary people stigmatizing and classifying experiences as mentally ill?

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Quintessence said:

Setting aside my personal objections to the pathologizing of interactions with the otherworlds, I'd observe that modern, domesticated culture in general has a tendency to pathologize a lot of things more than it probably ought. I could point to any number of cultural trends that probably contribute to this.

Consumerism - particularly capitalism with its emphasis on marketing products for sale - has every reason to convince otherwise well off individuals that there's something wrong with them in order to sell them the solution to their fabricated ails. ​

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Domestication - the extremely comfortable lives humans now live compared to their ancestors - has all but removed the challenges of survival on the day-to-day giving us time to make up what would otherwise be trivial or non-existent "problems" or issues. ​

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Control - the mythology that humans are at the top or center of everything - drives an obsession to shape the universe to personal desires and destroy, shut down, or modify anything we happen to not like or decree a problem or aberrant. ​

What's interesting is that the role of the walker between the worlds stands in pretty stark opposition to modern, domesticated human culture. The very idea and role of it doesn't fit within the assumptions it makes. It's a space that's about relationships between humans and the greater-than-human, where reciprocity is key and showing respect is paramount. It's a space where one exists outside of the boundaries of human society in a way that can be threatening to your tribe if the importance of this role is not respected and accepted. If anything, it'd be shocking if it wasn't pathologized. I expect to be told to see a therapist if I'm stupid enough to tell certain others about my experiences with the otherworlds and the spirits of the land. They should likewise expect me to tell them to stuff it. I've never fit in with human society and I never will. It's just who and what I am. And I curse being born into a culture for which there was not a nurturing environment to support people like me. Modern, domesticated humans have lost much by denying their shamans.

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Koldo said:

How specific are you being with your terminology? What counts as a shaman? Would you say that a spirit medium is a shaman?

As far as spirit mediums go, yes, it is definitely proper to think on terms of mental disorders (when they are not con artists).

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9-10ths_Penguin said:

I think that "ecstatic religious experiences" are indicative of a malfunctioning brain, but this doesn't necessarily mean mental illness.

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Bear Wild said:

Can you further explain what you mean by the malfunctioning brain?

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Bear Wild said:

Robert Sapolsky wrote a wonder book on neuroscience called Behave. It is an excellent introduction to neuroscience. I recently found and article he had written the past that was a little more controversial on the origins of schizophrenia and the schizotypal and this is a small section of it.



“What is schizotypal? It's a more subtle version of schizophrenia. This is not somebody who's completely socially crippled; they're just solitary, detached: these are the lighthouse keepers, the projectionists in the movie theaters. These are not people who are thought-disordered to the point of being completely nonfunctional; these are people who just believe in kinda strange stuff. They are into their Star Trek conventions. They're into their astrology, they're into their telepathy and their paranormal beliefs, they're into — and you can see now where I'm heading — very, very literal, concrete interpretations of religious events.”



Shamanism is a religious/spiritual phenomenon attributed to a shaman who can achieve various powers through trance or ecstatic religious experiences. The term was appropriated from the Tungus people of Siberia but that is another story. For this question we need to look at the fact that they claim the enter the spirit world and communicate with the spirits and numinous entities beyond the observable realm in the trance-like states.

• So does this mean that Shamans have a metal disorder that is either schizotypal or blending into schizophrenia?
• Are religious people who are not shaman but have mystical ore deeply religious experiences have a potential mental disorder bordering on schizophrenia?
• Was Carl Jung correct that people who develop schizophrenia just not prepared for there ego to dive into the ocean of the unconscious and become lost while those with religious experiences better prepared and do not develop a disorder.
• Or is this just an over rational mind trying to explain away the spiritual because they do not want it to exist.

I personally disagree with him but other Ideas welcome.

Belief and Biology by Robert Sapolsky (April 2003) - Freedom From Religion Foundation

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9-10ths_Penguin said:

I'm not sure how better to put it.

IMO, the sense of "oneness with the universe" that's the hallmark of a mystical experience is the result of diminished function of the parts of the brain involved in our concept of "self." A normally functioning brain will have a sense of what's "me" versus all the things around me that are "not me." Impair this sense and your brain starts to interpret everything around you as part of "you".

This impairment can be by drugs (i.e. "entheogens"), physiological stress (e.g. a sweat lodge), throwing off your blood chemistry (e.g. certain breathing methods), oxygen deprivation (e.g. certain near-death experiences), etc. More rarely, it can be caused by brain injury or mental illness.

Depending on the root cause, other experiences will go along with the feeling of "oneness," but these are generally malfunctions as well.

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Shadow Wolf said:

No. Do quit trying to armchair diagnose people. It is unethical, immoral and has real world consequences such as stigmatizing mental illness and a high risk of misdiagnoses, as is the case here, because laymen do not know the nuances of psychology to properly access such a thing.
Knock it off.

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Bear Wild said:

I agree with the no but am confused the rest. I hope you are referring to the author of the article Sapolsky and not me. Sapolsky is an excellent neuroscientist in his main area of original study which was with baboons. His article about the schizotypal however alarmed me and so I wanted to share this opinion with the forum to see how other react. I personally object to this kind of scientific reasoning because it is based on gross ignorance of the subject about shamanism. He uses anthropology studies for his basis which traditionally see other cultures with a western judgement. It is only very recently that anthropologists are attempting to present the spiritual information from the viewpoint of the people they are studying accepting their metaphysics. What disturbed me the most is that this type of "scientific reasoning" is applying science ideas to things it is unable to study in its normal reductionist way. This is not scientific at all only an apparent personal justification to reject any spiritual practices.

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Bear Wild said:

Robert Sapolsky wrote a wonder book on neuroscience called Behave. It is an excellent introduction to neuroscience. I recently found and article he had written the past that was a little more controversial on the origins of schizophrenia and the schizotypal and this is a small section of it.



“What is schizotypal? It's a more subtle version of schizophrenia. This is not somebody who's completely socially crippled; they're just solitary, detached: these are the lighthouse keepers, the projectionists in the movie theaters. These are not people who are thought-disordered to the point of being completely nonfunctional; these are people who just believe in kinda strange stuff. They are into their Star Trek conventions. They're into their astrology, they're into their telepathy and their paranormal beliefs, they're into — and you can see now where I'm heading — very, very literal, concrete interpretations of religious events.”



Shamanism is a religious/spiritual phenomenon attributed to a shaman who can achieve various powers through trance or ecstatic religious experiences. The term was appropriated from the Tungus people of Siberia but that is another story. For this question we need to look at the fact that they claim the enter the spirit world and communicate with the spirits and numinous entities beyond the observable realm in the trance-like states.

• So does this mean that Shamans have a metal disorder that is either schizotypal or blending into schizophrenia?
• Are religious people who are not shaman but have mystical ore deeply religious experiences have a potential mental disorder bordering on schizophrenia?
• Was Carl Jung correct that people who develop schizophrenia just not prepared for there ego to dive into the ocean of the unconscious and become lost while those with religious experiences better prepared and do not develop a disorder.
• Or is this just an over rational mind trying to explain away the spiritual because they do not want it to exist.

I personally disagree with him but other Ideas welcome.

Belief and Biology by Robert Sapolsky (April 2003) - Freedom From Religion Foundation

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☆Dreamwind☆ said:

Nope. And I also refuse to take shrinks seriously on anything. They're scam artists and snake oil salesmen anyway.

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9-10ths_Penguin said:

IMO, the sense of "oneness with the universe" that's the hallmark of a mystical experience is the result of diminished function of the parts of the brain involved in our concept of "self." A normally functioning brain will have a sense of what's "me" versus all the things around me that are "not me." Impair this sense and your brain starts to interpret everything around you as part of "you".

This impairment can be by drugs (i.e. "entheogens"), physiological stress (e.g. a sweat lodge), throwing off your blood chemistry (e.g. certain breathing methods), oxygen deprivation (e.g. certain near-death experiences), etc. More rarely, it can be caused by brain injury or mental illness.

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Bear Wild said:

If you consider this paradox, then one can see that we as a human being are in continuous connection with all around us all of the time and never truly separate. We would not be alive if we were completely separate. People who have the mystical experience would never return to the way they felt before which is hardly an impairment.

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Bear Wild said:

Here I must disagree. One can enter the trance state through very simple means without any physiologic stress. It is clear from functional MRIs that the trance state and use of entheogens create similar patterns.

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Bear Wild said:

It incorrect to say they is an impairment or loss of self and in fact if one enters into the unconscious in this way is essential not to lose one's "self" for that could lead to a mental disorder.

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Bear Wild said:

As for coming into the "oneness with the universe" this is a far too simple expression for what is happening. I describe it more as a recognition of a paradox of being both an individual and being a part of the whole of nature at the same time. Your "self" is never lost but rather rejoined with the greater world.

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Bear Wild said:

The problem with our modern western culture is that it has lost that connection, and the result is seen in our psychological and environmental crisis of today. If you consider this paradox, then one can see that we as a human being are in continuous connection with all around us all of the time and never truly separate. We would not be alive if we were completely separate. People who have the mystical experience would never return to the way they felt before which is hardly an impairment.

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