Saturday, April 10, 2010

From a Conversation on Shamanism

Galina Krasskova and I are having an interesting discussion on Shamanism on the Yahoo group Spiritual Occultist.  The term "Shaman" gets bandied about a lot nowadays by people who are utilizing some of the traditional practices of Shamanism but who aren't filling the role classically played by shamans.  Some of the people using it don't even think the traditional practices are necessary or even desirable.  I'd be interested in hearing what others had to contribute to this conversation.
This is very true and was what I was trying to get across in my post about healing and shamanism. It’s a Job and there can be a lot of tools in the toolbox that goes a long with that job, but when it comes down to it, it’s still a specific type of Job, which is why I tend to refer to shamans as spiritual technicians. (A more unsentimental bunch of folk you will not find than the shamans that I work with LOL)
And the thing which I would point out is that it is a job which involves clients. The shaman works in service to a community. When s/he wanders about the spirit worlds s/he generally seeks power to be used in service of that community, not "enlightenment." "Enlightenment" is a concept which comes from Buddhism, a tradition which has generally been actively hostile to Shamanism. While there have been a few Shamanic/Buddhist syncretic religions formed, most notably in Tibet, by and large Buddhists have persecuted Shamans for working with demons, being overly concerned with the material world, and generally posing a threat to the established Buddhist order. The Hinayana Arhat seeks to find enlightenment for hirself: the Mahayana Boddhisatva wishes to bring it to the masses. The Shaman wants to ensure the continuing fertility, good health and survival of the tribe. 
Beautifully put. I am primarily ordeal, ascetic practices, and sometimes horsing so my experience with plant spirits (to induce trance) has been minimal. I certainly know it’s a valuable tool though. It really is a matter, as you so aptly put it, of pragmatism and matching the tool to the job at hand.
Plant allies have garnered a bad reputation in the community because of people who equate a "mystical experience" with dropping a couple tabs of MDMA (more likely some crap piperazine derivative these days) and attending a rave.  Don't get me wrong, I support the right of consenting adults to ingest any chemical they please. But there is a big, big, BIG difference between recreational drug use and sacred use of plant allies.

Approached with respect and caution by people who are called to use them as tools, plant allies can give you access to realms which are difficult or impossible to reach without them. I don't know anyone who would say you can recreate an Ayahuasca or Salvia divinorum experience just by meditating... at least not anyone who has actually worked with those plants. Approached as recreational aides, plant allies can help you catch a good buzz. Trying to compare the two uses is like saying that a priceless Ming dynasty vase is no different than a public toilet since both happen to be made of porcelain. 
(from Dorothy, another Spiritual Occultist participant):  Drugs and deprivation are used when the person cannot enter the spiritual world without them. With proper meditation and training, these are not necessary.

(From Kenaz, Responding to Dorothy) How much experience do you have in exploring the spiritual world with drugs and deprivation? And how does that work compare and contrast to your spiritual explorations without them?
I don’t use plant spirits’ help but I do use ordeal and the trip is fast and dirty. Sometimes this is the most efficient way to go (sometimes not). Sometimes it is the safest and most expeditious way to go, sometimes not. Again, it’s all about matching the tool to the job at hand.
I understand Dorothy's trepidations about encouraging the usage of plant allies. I certainly have seen "Shamanic" lists which have degenerated into rambling conversations about various fun trips. But one should avoid judging a practice by its loudest and most visible morons. Thousands of years before we had stoners, we had shamans using various mind-altering tools to accomplish their jobs. The toolsets used were remarkably consistent throughout various times and cultures. I am certainly open to the possibility that someone may have come up with a shamanic system which makes some or all of these tools superfluous. But before I hail this remarkable advance in spiritual technology I'd like to see some evidence for its efficacy and safety. 

4 comments:

Alexandra said...

I always find amusing to hear about shamanism in western countries. I don't mean the application of certain shaman techniques, but the snobbery one sometimes finds. It's impossible to recreate "traditional" shamanism. We simply do not have the mental constructs for that. No modern western shaman healing someone in their community faces the danger of being killed if he fails to heal. Likewise, i've never heard of modern western shamans using "spies" to know the secrets of others in order to claim that knowledge and say it came from "the spirits". The examples of the shamans trickery to maintain his status goes on and on.
Comparing traditional shamanism to whatever goes on a western country is silly imo. We do not have neither the society nor the cultural constraints that the Samoyed or the Innuit do. Shamans, here, aren't responsible for guaranteeing that food will be on the table, there wont be taboos regarding the first whale killed or hunting weaponry. And these aren't only "symbols" that can be easily separated from the "tech". They are, on the other hand, the formative ground for the tech. No formation, and what you get is an attempt at shamanism. I would, personally, love to hear of a modern western shaman that has spent the last few years out in the loneliness having only for company the ocasional visit of his teacher.

Also, your part about "Enlightenment" is not quite right. It's concept does exist within Shamanism (although i'm not sure if it does exist within ALL shamanism(s)). Aua, a shaman whose account we get recounted by Knud Rasmussen speaks of it. It's englghtment obtained by strife, loneliness and initiation. Its what enables a shaman to be a shaman, to see as a shaman does, beyond the material world and into the outer world(s) and inner world(s) of both people, animal and plant.

I wrote a short essay on Shamanism a while ago on my blog, perhaps you would enjoy reading:

http://boticavelha.blogspot.com/search/label/Shamanism

Alexandra said...

Oh sorry, i forgot to adress the second part of your post (LOL Kenaz, you seem to love opening cans of worms :> )

I remember seeing a remarkable book by Harriette Frances in which she documents her experiences with LSD during some pyschedelic program. She did this incredible drawings of her voyage into the underworld and how, there, she got dismembered and finnaly her body got woven together again with the help of, if memory serves me well, a bird. It's amazing how this atavic motif's repeat themselves over and over again. Anyway, my love for plant allies will never cease to grow and i'm amazed at how people can shrug them off so easily. I undertand it, of course. After all the sad tales of addiction and misery we get due to the irresponsable use of drugs this atitudes are to be expected, however, and in this i agree with you completly, there can be no comparison betweeen meditation, which in itself is about attainment of full consciousness of Self, and the use of Entheogens and other herbs, whose effect is to "open the doors of perception" not to yourself alone, but their realms. It is my personal stance that the world of the green genii is not our own but theirs and as such they are the stewards who hold the keys to those places, not us and certainly not our meditation techniques. It is no sign of weekness or lack of ability to resort to them, quite the contrary, for to accurately use them to best effect without getting lost in their wonders or, worse, getting killed, shows great ability, respect and wisdom.

Gordon said...

I learned a word at university. It was a verb: "problematize".

Thank you for problematizing the role of chemically altered shamanic states in modern western culture because I, for one, feel that the discussion has fallen in between the cracks dividing the stoners and the prudes.

"Problematizing" is deliberating making a topic more complex or multifaceted so as to provoke more thinking and talking about it.

Have you read "Supernatural" by Graham Hancock? He pushes his thesis a bit further than it can probably go but it is very enlightening when it comes to the role of plant allies and the origin of mankind's religious beliefs.

I reviewed it here:
http://runesoup.com/2010/03/7-essential-chaos-magic-books-that-arent-about-magic/

Gypsy Lantern said...

I used to enjoy a bit of recreational drug use in the early 90s, coming of age in the UK around the time when the rave scene was reaching its crescendo. It was all a bit haphazard and irresponsible, from a magical perspective, but within the spectacular mess of that, I had some quite profound experiences which, in retrospect, I tend to think of as important aspects of my development as a magician. I look back on that as entirely valid, albeit random, experiences of the world of spirit.

These days, I don't really go in for it. I've since had several experiences of Ayahuasca in a ritual Santo Daime setting, and of Salvia in an extremely weird five minutes under the settee after the pub setting, and all of that was interesting, but it's not really my road. I can get further with my Voodoo practice. Not as dramatic or instant, but certainly engaging with the same strata of experience. I see it as the difference between having regular traffic through the mirror over a period of years, and jumping entirely through the mirror for a few hours with little preparation or understanding of the terrain. I learned a lot from my experiences of the latter, but I personally prefer the former approach to these matters. It sinks in more, and it makes it less about chasing a peak experience that is largely created by an external agent, and more about observing the ebb and flow of the same mysteries of existence in your day-to-day experience of the world without the need of a chemical catalyst to get you there.

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