Defining Neo-Shamanic Practices Involving Dimethyltryptamine (DMT) from Shamans’ Perceptions on Transcendence and Transformation

Abstract

N,N-Dimethyltryptamine (DMT or N,N-DMT) is a chemical compound that has been used in entheogenic concoctions such as ayahuasca by Amazonian indigenous cultures for centuries. When Westerners started to come to the jungles in search of this ancestral medicine, some of them became shamans themselves and brought the medicine to other Westerners and into urban areas as well. This changed the way to see traditional shamanism into what can be called new shamanism. However, it is not clear what makes them two different ways of achieving transcendence and transformation. By analyzing published interviews of shamans and neo-shamans, it is possible to re-define new shamanistic practices as a new contemporary lifestyle with its unique features that can also be considered as a new religious movement.