Steven Beyer has Ph.D. degrees in religious studies and in psychology, and has taught as an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, the University of California, Berkeley, and the Graduate Theological Union.

 

Beyer is an independent scholar doing research and fieldwork in ethnobotany, shamanism, ethnomedicine, and hallucinogenic plants and fungi, with a focus on indigenous and shamanic healing systems and the cognitive psychology of anomalous experiences. His current research centers on concepts of healing and the lived body across cultures, the cross-cultural transmission of ethnomedical systems, the role of alternative medical models, and differing cultural conceptions of herbalism and the healing plants.