Views differ on the religious content of West Mexican shaft-tomb figures, from highly secular to very sacred. For decades many art historians believed that the art showed scenes of everyday life but nothing of the supernatural. In opposition, Peter Furst argues that many of the figures represent aspects of the spiritual: shamans who intercede with spirits, transformations, and non-ordinary reality induced by drugs. He interprets seated “horned” warriors turned to the left as shamans facing evil, rather than as rulers. Furst notes that many of the whistles found in tombs must have been meant for use in the supernatural realm, since a living person cannot physically blow them. In various figures, Furst sees spirits and gods similar to those in other parts of Mesoamerica, although other scholars continue to deny that any figures represent deities.

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