Struttura (La presentazione parlerà della nascita della spiritualità nell’Homo

sapiens)
Religion has been defined as "a set of rituals, rationalized by myth, which mobilizes supernatural
powers for the purpose of achieving or preventing transformations of state in man and nature"
(Wallace 1966: 107). An evolutionary scenario explains the origin of such rituals. Ancient primates
probably used rudimentary rituals to alleviate social stress. Hominids are assumed to have devised
more complex rituals, producing therapeutic altered states of consciousness (ASC). At some stage,
Homo sapiens devised shamanic hypnotic therapies, coupling ASC with suggestion. Because such
practices were effective, these rituals selected for genotypes associated with hypnotizability. With
increased frequency of these genotypes, religious sentiment, myths, and ideologies justifying ritual
became possible. Genetic research provides evidence supporting this scenario. Religious sentiment
(the attitudes, thoughts, and judgments prompted by feelings associated with therapeutic ASC) has a
genetic basis. Comparisons of identical and fraternal twins reared apart indicate that approximately
50% of the observed variance of measures of religious interest, attitudes, and values are genetically
influenced (Wailer et al. 1990) […]
The proposed model portrays religion as the evolutionary product of therapeutic ritual and
language.

Spiritüale – Che è immateriale, esente da materialità, che appartiene

alla sfera dello spirito.
Storia delle teorie

 Edward Burnett Tylor, uno dei fondatori dell'antropologia culturale, ha elaborato la

sua teoria sulla religione nel suo libro "Primitive Culture" del 1871. Secondo Tylor, la
funzione principale della religione è quella di spiegare il mondo e i fenomeni
naturali in termini di forze sovrannaturali. Tylor definisce la religione come "la
credenza in entità spirituali", che includono sia gli dèi che gli spiriti. Egli sostiene che
l'umanità primitiva si basava sulla religione come un modo per comprendere e
spiegare i misteri del mondo che altrimenti erano inspiegabili.
 Secondo Émile Durkheim, un importante sociologo francese, la funzione principale
della religione è quella di promuovere e mantenere la coesione sociale all'interno di
una società. Durkheim espresse la sua teoria nella sua opera fondamentale "Le
forme elementari della vita religiosa" (The Elementary Forms of Religious Life)
pubblicata nel 1912. Durkheim afferma che la religione è un fenomeno sociale che si
origina dalla vita sociale e che svolge un ruolo cruciale nell'integrare gli individui in
una comunità più ampia. Egli sostiene che la religione è un sistema di credenze e
pratiche collettive che rappresenta l'essenza stessa della società, incarnando e
riflettendo i valori, le norme e le istituzioni sociali.
 Sigmund Freud, il fondatore della psicoanalisi, ha elaborato una concezione
particolare della religione nel suo lavoro. Freud considerava la religione come un
fenomeno psicologico e ha sviluppato diverse teorie sul suo significato e la sua
funzione. La sua prospettiva sulla religione è espressa principalmente nei suoi scritti
"Il futuro di un'illusione" (The Future of an Illusion) del 1927 e "L'avvenire di
un'illusione" (Civilization and Its Discontents) del 1930. Secondo Freud, la religione
 ha origine da bisogni e desideri profondamente radicati nella psiche umana. Egli
suggerisce che la religione si basa sull'infantile desiderio di protezione, sicurezza e
conforto, simile a quello provato nei confronti di un genitore. Freud afferma che gli
esseri umani, affrontando le difficoltà e le incertezze della vita, proiettano questi
bisogni sul concetto di un dio o un'entità superiore, creando così un'illusione di
sicurezza e protezione. Secondo Freud, la religione si basa anche sull'idea di un
padre onnipotente, che rappresenta una figura autoritaria e protettiva. Questa
figura di un dio-padrone esercita un controllo sulla coscienza e sul comportamento
delle persone, fornendo un senso di ordine e significato al mondo. Freud sostiene
che la religione funge da meccanismo di difesa psicologica, in cui gli individui
proiettano i loro bisogni e conflitti interiori su una figura divina esterna.

Secondo Ernesto de Martino, l’avvento della cultura coinciderebbe con il dispiegarsi della presenza
nel mondo, sorretta dagli istituti magici che allontanano il rischio del suo perdersi, del suo defluire
nel mondo. (E. De Martino, Il mondo magico. Prolegomeni a una storia del magismo, Einaudi,
Torino 2022.)
Possiamo supporre che la spiritualità tra gli ominidi sia nata proprio per sopperire a questi momenti
di crisi?

Shamanic Healing, Human Evolution, and the Origin of Religion

Source: Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Sep., 1997, Vol. 36, No. 3 (Sep., 1997), pp. 345-
354
JAMES MCCLENON (sociologo)

The proposed model portrays religion as the evolutionary product of therapeutic ritual and
language. The scenario coincides with Charles Darwin's suggestion that hominids acquired the
capacity for song (voluntary modulations of vocal cries) as a stage in the evolutionary process
leading to language.
- Secondo questo modello la spiritualità sarebbe il risultato evolutivo dello sviluppo di
pratiche rituali basate sul canto. –
A variety of evidence supports this scenario. Hominid fossils reveal a gradual cranial enlargement,
progressive changes of the basal surface of the skull, morphological asymmetry of the hemispheres,
and other markers associated with the gradual development of the modern vocal apparatus. Virtually
all studies of the structures of intelligence indicate that musical talent is a separate factor from
verbal skill.

- Lo sviluppo del canto è plausibilmente precedente a quello del linguaggio (secondo Darwin
il canto è un tentativo di articolare delle parole). Inoltre, linguaggio e canto fanno capo a due
aree del cervello diverse suggerendo due evoluzioni separate. –

Mimetic rituals such as chanting, singing, drumming, dancing, and other repetitive behaviors
produce ASC. ASC is defined as "a qualitative shift" from normal patterns of mental functioning, a
subjective sensation associated with behavioral changes (Tart 1969: 2). H. erectus probably engaged
in ASC rituals because of resulting pleasant sensations. Mild forms of ritual ASC are equivalent to
the relaxation response, characterized by EEG changes and reduced heart rate, blood pressure,
respiratory rate, and blood lactate levels, parameters affecting a wide variety of medical disorders.
The relaxation response can become hypnosis when coupled with suggestion (Benson, Arns,
Hoffman 1981.
- La presenza di ASC durante canti, danze e rituali ripetitivi è avvalorata da cambiamenti nel
EEG.
Probabilmente già l'Homo erectus si induceva stati di alterazione perché sentiva che erano
benefici. –

The proposed scenario portrays shamanism as a cultural adaptation to biologically based ASC and
associated adaptive potentials. […] Shamans were the only type of magico-religious practitioner
found in hunting and gathering societies; no shamans were found in sedentary societies. […] The
model hypothesizes that humans benefiting most from shamanic hypnotic rituals had survival
advantages.

High hypnotizability coincides with frequent anomalous and religious experiences, perceptions
providing foundations for religious belief (Hood 1973; McClenon 1994). Such experiences, coupled
with hypnotic suggestibility, allow development and acceptance of ideologies supporting religious
ritual.

- L'ipnotizzabilità, che alimenta ed è alimentata dal rito estatico, funge dunque da base per la
nascita della spiritualità come interpretazione di suggestioni sensoriali e non. –

The theory has five testable features:

(1) Shamanic/hypnotic rituals increase survival and fertility.
(2) The efficacy of shamanic hypnotic ritual is correlated with hypnotizability.
(3) Hypnotizability has a genetic component.
(4) Shamanic hypnotic rituals were practiced for sufficient time to have meaningful impact on the
frequency of hypnotizability genotypes.
(5) Hypnotizability affects the frequency and characteristics of anomalous, paranormal, and
religious experiences, shaping religious ideological development.

1. Shamanic/hypnotic rituals increase survival and fertility.

It is generally assumed that shamanic rituals increase survival and fertility due to psychological
echanisms. Many anthropologists have observed that shamanic rhetorical practices provide benefits,
particularly for mild psychiatric and psychosomatic disorders. Although shamanic efficacy can be
attributed, in part, to herbal and placebo effects, many observers note that hypnosis plays a role.
Folk healing accounts contain features suggesting hypnotic processes.
This observation coincides with psychoneuroimmunology research. Because psychosocial factors
influence susceptibility to, and progression of, many diseases, folk hypnotic suggestions affecting
emotional states can alter fertility and mortality.
Hypnosis has been demonstrated through controlled studies to alleviate dissociative, posttraumatic
stress as well as psychophysiological and other neurotic-level disorders of a circumscribed nature,
reduce surgical blood loss and postsurgical pain, treat hemophiliacs, and reduce complications
during pregnancy and delivery.
Because psychopathologies influence rates of coital inability, conceptive failure, pregnancy loss,
and infertility, shamanic/hypnotic treatments would be expected to affect fertility. Folklore from
many localities coincides, to a degree, with hypnosis research in supporting this assumption.
Because psychopathologies influence rates of coital inability, conceptive failure, pregnancy loss,
and infertility, shamanic/hypnotic treatments would be expected to affect fertility. Folklore from
many localities coincides, to a degree, with hypnosis research in supporting this assumption.

4. Shamanic/hypnotic rituals were practiced for sufficient time to have meaningful impact on the
frequency of hypnotizability genotype.
The hypnotic capacity of chimpanzees appears shaped by their need to live collectively.
Chimpanzees, rhesus monkeys, stump-tailed monkeys, and bonobos display rituals associated with
aggression and reconciliation.
Ritual grooming in chimpanzees functions to alleviate aggression and sometimes produces the
sleepy, stuporous appearance associated with ASC. Chimpanzees respond hypnotically to repetitive
verbal commands by humans, a reaction more similar to human hypnosis than that of nonprimates.
The model proposes that ancient primate hypnotic capacities were shaped by evolutionary processes
in a direction that facilitated group living.

The Origins of Inebriation: Archaeological Evidence of the Consumption of

Fermented Beverages and Drugs in Prehistoric Eurasia

Source: Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory , September 2015, Vol. 22, No. 3 (September
2015), pp. 751-782
Elisa Guerra-Doce

One of the earliest documents of the occurrence of mood-altering plants in the Old World is that of
a Middle Palaeolithic burial cave at Shanidar, northern Iraq, ca. 60,000 BC. Around the skeleton of
an adult male aged between 30 and 45 years, known as Shanidar IV or the "flower burial",
palynological studies revealed the presence of several medicinal plant species including ephedra, a
natural stimulant. Consequently, this Neanderthal grave was considered to be that of a shaman.
Other scholars, however, dispute the idea that these plants were the result of a ritual deposition, but
rather of a subsequent contamination of the cave by the activity of the Persian jird {Meriones
persicus), as many bones of this gerbil- like rodent were found during the excavation of Shanidar.

Archaeobotanical remains for the use of psychoactive plant species increase significantly from the
Neolithic period onwards. Since the Early Neolithic, many Neolithic and Bronze Age settlements in
north-western provided opium poppy remains, but direct evidence of the exploitation properties of
this species is quite scarce (Merlin 1984). Indeed, at the Neolithic Vaux-et-Borset, Belgium, opium
poppy seeds were added as temper to the produce one of the pots found there.

The domestication of the opium poppy is thought to have started during the sixth millennium BC in
the Western, from where it spread to the rest of the continent to reach north-west Europe by the end
of the sixth millennium (Si parla della coltivazione di oppio. In realtà, come dimostra Shandiar IV
l’uso di piante medicinali e psicotrope non era una novità).

In prehistoric times, alcohol was obtained through the fermentation of sugars certain products by
the action of naturally occurring yeasts and some types of bacteria. The main raw materials used to
prepare alcoholic beverages came from five sugars: sugar-rich fruits and honey (fructose and
glucose), malted grain sap (sucrose) and milk (lactose). Therefore, the variety of alcoholic drinks in
Europe was very limited and involved fruit wines, mead, beer and fermented made from dairy
products; the spread of viticulture and the development winemaking in temperate Europe and the
Western Mediterranean did not until as recently as the first millennium BC during the Iron Age, and
it is commercial expansion of the Phoenicians, Greeks, Etruscans and Romans. It has been
suggested that many primates and early hominids could have consumed over-ripe fruits in search
for their mood-altering properties due content (this is a naturally occurring substance resulting from
the fermentation rich fruits) (Dudley 2004). According to this "drunken monkey hypothesis", come
to be named, primates' attraction to alcohol may have a genetic basis. This habit could have led to
the discovery of alcoholic drinks as the Palaeolithic. Some scholars rule out the that fermented
beverages could have been produced before the invention of pottery during the Neolithic. However,
the technological and prerequisites of brewing were well established in the Natufian, the drinking of
beer made from fermented wild crops could have had an important in the course of ritual feasts
among Epipalaeolithic communities of the Near Est. Yet, for the time being at least, direct evidence
is lacking.

Nel paleolitico e sicuramente nel Nafutiano e nell’Epipaleolitico il consumo di bevande fermentate

era già ampio.

Spirituality and the Aging Brain

Andrew B. Newberg
(Studi moderni sui benefici della spiritualità)
Mindfulness meditation via the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Program (MBSR) is one of the
most widely studied practices and has been shown to have therapeutic benefits in several chronic
illness populations, including those with mood disorders. An early study of MBSR in fourteen
patients with anxiety found a reduction in blood pressure and decreases in depression, anxiety, and
general psychological distress in patients undergoing MBSR therapy. Meta-analyses have
conflicting conclusions regarding MBSR’s efficacy in patients with mood disorders. While one
review of fifteen studies on the effects of MBSR found no clear positive effects on depression
symptoms in patients with comorbid medical disorders or in patients with mood disorders alone,
another systematic review and meta-analysis found mindfulness-based therapies to have robust
within-group effect in patients with anxiety and mood disorders, results that were maintained at
follow up.
The effectiveness of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) in chronic recurrent
depression has also been evaluated.