Michael James Winkelman

Michael Winkelman, Ph.D. (University of California-Irvine), M.P.H. (University of Arizona) is retired from Arizona State University. He was President of the Anthropology of Consciousness and Anthropology of Religion sections of the American Anthropological Association. Winkelman engaged cross-cultural and interdisciplinary research on the universal patterns of shamanism and identifying their biological bases. His publications on shamanism include Shamans, Priests and Witches and Shamanism: A Biopsychosocial Paradigm of Consciousness and Healing. Shamanism provides a biogenetic model of shamanism that explains the evolutionary origins of spiritual healing in ancient ritual capacities. This biological approach is expanded in his co-authored Supernatural as Natural. These provide a framework for understanding the necessary role of psychedelics in human evolution and the continued relevance of alterations of consciousness for healing (also see his co-edited Psychedelic Medicine and Altering Consciousness). Winkelman’s work shows that shamanism, psychedelics and alterations of consciousness have biological bases and continue relevance for addressing human well-being today.

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