McClenon's ritual healing theory: an exploratory study

This article concerns the variables antecedent to the beliefs surrounding, and experience of, shamanism. McClenon has devised a model--Ritual Healing Theory--in which a chain of variables leads to shamanic belief and experience and thence to healing of various sorts. The present study examined a number of variables in order to ascertain in a preliminary way the viability of McClenon's model: childhood trauma, hypnotizability, anomalous experience, and shamanic belief and experience. Childhood trauma was positively but nonsignificantly correlated with hypnotizability, hypnotizability was positively and significantly correlated with anomalous experience, and anomalous experience was positively and significantly correlated with shamanic belief/experience. Thus there was some evidence that the various variables postulated by McClenon in the chain of causation are related to each other in the way that he posits. Finally, transliminality correlated with all the variables in the model except childhood trauma. It is suggested that transliminality may be located between hypnotizability and anomalous experience or conceivably could be a factor underlying all the variables.
The practice of shamanism still remains a vital tradition in many countries. McClenon (2002) defined the "shaman" as the person who links the world of people and the world of [...]