Benny Shanon

Benny Shanon was born in 1948 in Tel Aviv

Benny Shanon was born Ben-Zion Shanon in Tel Aviv in 1948 to parents who were both doctors. He later lived in Jerusalem. His love of languages grew from travels around the world, and he spoke Hebrew, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Dutch.

While still in the army, he began studying linguistics in the first class of the program at Tel Aviv University, where he also studied philosophy. He briefly studied medicine after his release. He earned a doctorate in psychology at Stanford University in the early 1970s and taught at MIT from 1974 to 1976, where he was in contact with Noam Chomsky.

At the Hebrew University he held the Mandel Chair in cognitive psychology and education and headed the psychology department. In 1993 he published a book that criticized the view of the mind as symbol manipulation and stressed action in the world. His 2002 book with Oxford University Press mapped the ayahuasca experience, drawing on about 2,500 experiences, including his own.

He first encountered ayahuasca in South America in 1983 and began using it in 1991. In 2008 his theory that Moses was under the influence of a psychedelic brew at the burning bush and Mount Sinai drew wide attention. He called the idea speculative. He never married and died on January 30, 2025.