Is Shamanism the World's Oldest Profession?

A new study published in the journal Behavioral and Brain Sciences suggests shamans acted as the first professional class in human society. Manvir Singh, a graduate student in the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University argues in a new paper that shamanism develops as specialists compete to provide magical services to their community. Those services could range from healing disease to exorcising evil spirits to telling fortunes, or even changing the weather. According to Singh, "The theory is that there are important things we really want to have control over -- calling rain, summoning animals, healing illness. All around the world, people believe that these important, uncertain outcomes are influenced by invisible forces -- gods, witches, their ancestors, fairies, and more. But a shaman says, 'I can control that. I can talk to fairies. I can see signs of witches. I can be possessed by a god or speak to them.'" The key to the community's trust that a shaman has those abilities, Singh said, comes from the belief that the shaman is transformed into something more than human, and able to interact with supernatural forces. This helps explain how shamans became the first professional class in human societies. Read more.