Zoroastrianism
Moderators: MichelleH, Minimalist, JPeters
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Minimalist
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That's okay, boss....my wife is always moving my shit around too.
Something is wrong here. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption, and the Ice Capades. Something is definitely wrong. This is not good work. If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed.
-- George Carlin
-- George Carlin
OK, if you’re sure you want me to talk about this, Michelle.....?
I don’t want to hijack Min’s Zoroastrian thread, but perhaps we can have just a short diversion, so here goes anyway ...
After so many thousands of years, people have mainly forgotten what the shaman does – and so his various roles as healer, spiritual guide, psychopomp, diviner and so on are only dimly remembered, if at all. But one thing that hasn’t been forgotten is that the shaman can bring the rains – and that’s probably because he is still doing it.
One of the few civilisations left who are still living in the same, traditional ways on the same land for around 20, 000 years are the San Bushmen. In her book, Archaeologies of Materiality, Professor of Anthropology Lynn Meskell talks about the San’s rain making capabilities.
In his Hunter Gatherers of the Modern World, anthropologist Peter P Schweitzer quotes Lewis Williams 1981, and Campell 1987 who found that the Bantu-speaking farmers of the southern African Bush became completely dependent on the San shamans for bringing the rains, as it enabled them to farm in desert-type regions that were normally too dry.
There are countless other examples ....
So next, I expect, you’re going to ask me, how does he do it? How does the shaman bring the rains?
Well, I’m sorry to say, I don’t know - except that I’ve heard that it’s something he does, magnetically, to the lakes of water that are under the surface of the earth in the locality where he is. Somehow, he moves this subterranean water and this triggers something off in the skies ... don’t ask me what, or how, but if I ever find out, I’ll let you know.
Now, back to Zoroastrianism.
I don’t want to hijack Min’s Zoroastrian thread, but perhaps we can have just a short diversion, so here goes anyway ...
After so many thousands of years, people have mainly forgotten what the shaman does – and so his various roles as healer, spiritual guide, psychopomp, diviner and so on are only dimly remembered, if at all. But one thing that hasn’t been forgotten is that the shaman can bring the rains – and that’s probably because he is still doing it.
One of the few civilisations left who are still living in the same, traditional ways on the same land for around 20, 000 years are the San Bushmen. In her book, Archaeologies of Materiality, Professor of Anthropology Lynn Meskell talks about the San’s rain making capabilities.
In his Hunter Gatherers of the Modern World, anthropologist Peter P Schweitzer quotes Lewis Williams 1981, and Campell 1987 who found that the Bantu-speaking farmers of the southern African Bush became completely dependent on the San shamans for bringing the rains, as it enabled them to farm in desert-type regions that were normally too dry.
There are countless other examples ....
So next, I expect, you’re going to ask me, how does he do it? How does the shaman bring the rains?
Well, I’m sorry to say, I don’t know - except that I’ve heard that it’s something he does, magnetically, to the lakes of water that are under the surface of the earth in the locality where he is. Somehow, he moves this subterranean water and this triggers something off in the skies ... don’t ask me what, or how, but if I ever find out, I’ll let you know.
Now, back to Zoroastrianism.
Ishtar of Ishtar's Gate and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.
Great going so far, guys...
Quick questions: What does PIE stand for and a brief description?
TIA
patty
Quick questions: What does PIE stand for and a brief description?
Also, what is HG?Many Indo-European branches show evidence for horse sacrifice, and comparative mythology suggests that they derive from a PIE ritual.
Trying to learn the lingo....Agriculturalists, HGs and shepherds have different problems
TIA
patty
Hi Patty
No problem!
PIE means Proto Indo European.
HG means hunter gatherer.
Hope that helps!
No problem!
PIE means Proto Indo European.
HG means hunter gatherer.
Hope that helps!
Ishtar of Ishtar's Gate and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.
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Minimalist
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- Joined: Mon Sep 26, 2005 1:09 pm
- Location: Arizona
How does the shaman bring the rains?
He times his prayers for the start of the rainy season.
Something is wrong here. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption, and the Ice Capades. Something is definitely wrong. This is not good work. If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed.
-- George Carlin
-- George Carlin
All -
More to it than that.
I'll refer again to "The Way of the Hopi", by Frank Waters
and Oswald White Bear.
And just off the top, the Kalahari Bushmen and the Dogon.
Not to mention Shinto or the Ainu.
These peoples exhibit the bicameral worldview
Discussed by Jaynes.
Rather than the subject/object worldview of the present.
Possibly call that worldview "Newtonian."
OK. What's the diff?
Ishtar, I'm gonna take your name in vain here,
Because we are dealing with the Shamanic worldview here,
vs. the Newtonian.
One of your essential points is that the Shamanic ultimately
Regards any topology as non-dimensional.
Remind me to look up Whitehead again (note to myself).
The Newtonian worldview takes time, space, matter and awareness
As an objective, intellectual, non-manipulable pecking order.
The ultimate conclusion of this type of thinking
Is that there MUST be an ultimate being
"The Wizard of Oz", the guy behind the curtain pulling the levers
And we are all permanent victims of this hierarchical order.
Powerless, unless we invoke "God on our Side" and
Commit a number of very physical atrocities which
Prove our political, religious and economic superiority.
The Shamanic worldview takes time, space, matter and awareness
As simultaneous, heterogenous, and manipulable.
Therefore, we are each and all of us are ultimate beings
(this includes all forms of life, including planets, galaxies, rocks, oceans, etc.)
Who happen to share the responsibility for keeping
This simultaneous and heterogenous
Order in harmony.
I realize this sounds outrageous.
So, an even more outrageous statement.
Einstein spent his life seeking the "Unified Field Theory,"
I think it was called.
The Shamanic had the Unified Field Theory dialed
A long, long time ago.
Einstein, as an individual, was responding to what we,
As a species have lost, using the tool he knew best,
mathematics.
I think we are all familiar with that awareness, that longing.
hoka hey
john
More to it than that.
I'll refer again to "The Way of the Hopi", by Frank Waters
and Oswald White Bear.
And just off the top, the Kalahari Bushmen and the Dogon.
Not to mention Shinto or the Ainu.
These peoples exhibit the bicameral worldview
Discussed by Jaynes.
Rather than the subject/object worldview of the present.
Possibly call that worldview "Newtonian."
OK. What's the diff?
Ishtar, I'm gonna take your name in vain here,
Because we are dealing with the Shamanic worldview here,
vs. the Newtonian.
One of your essential points is that the Shamanic ultimately
Regards any topology as non-dimensional.
Remind me to look up Whitehead again (note to myself).
The Newtonian worldview takes time, space, matter and awareness
As an objective, intellectual, non-manipulable pecking order.
The ultimate conclusion of this type of thinking
Is that there MUST be an ultimate being
"The Wizard of Oz", the guy behind the curtain pulling the levers
And we are all permanent victims of this hierarchical order.
Powerless, unless we invoke "God on our Side" and
Commit a number of very physical atrocities which
Prove our political, religious and economic superiority.
The Shamanic worldview takes time, space, matter and awareness
As simultaneous, heterogenous, and manipulable.
Therefore, we are each and all of us are ultimate beings
(this includes all forms of life, including planets, galaxies, rocks, oceans, etc.)
Who happen to share the responsibility for keeping
This simultaneous and heterogenous
Order in harmony.
I realize this sounds outrageous.
So, an even more outrageous statement.
Einstein spent his life seeking the "Unified Field Theory,"
I think it was called.
The Shamanic had the Unified Field Theory dialed
A long, long time ago.
Einstein, as an individual, was responding to what we,
As a species have lost, using the tool he knew best,
mathematics.
I think we are all familiar with that awareness, that longing.
hoka hey
john
"Man is a marvellous curiosity. When he is at his very, very best he is sort of a low-grade nickel-plated angel; at his worst he is unspeakable, unimaginable; and first and last and all the time he is a sarcasm."
Mark Twain
Mark Twain
So in that sense can we say humans are the cumination of the animal world then and are the "gods" of the animal kingdom? Bound with the responsibility to care for them rather than destroy them? And if so - what if there is another step beyond humans - what would they be? Or has evolution just stopped? Or can it ever stop?
i'm not lookin' for who or what made the earth - just who got me dizzy by makin it spin
Min and Michellepattylt wrote: Quick questions: What does PIE stand for and a brief description...
Also, what is HG?Trying to learn the lingo....Agriculturalists, HGs and shepherds have different problems
TIA
patty
Would it encourage more people to post if we had a hyperlinked glossary?
On Acharya S's site, these sorts of words or acronyms are automatically hyperlinked to its entry within a glossary of terms, with just a sentence or two to explain it.
So for instance, if you wanted to know what Pre-Clovis meant, you would just click on it and it would take you to a short definition which also contains a link to wiki for a fuller explanation if necessary.
I can think of lots of words and terms that could benefit from this treatment, not least all the HHs, HNs and HHSs which could be grouped in chronological order. Also Pleistocene, Holocene and Miocene ....
Just a thought anyway.
Last edited by Ishtar on Tue Jun 03, 2008 11:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Ishtar of Ishtar's Gate and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.
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Minimalist
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- Joined: Mon Sep 26, 2005 1:09 pm
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Good idea.
Of course, the dictionary definition for "pre-Clovis" would be "THERE AIN'T NO SUCH THING."
Of course, the dictionary definition for "pre-Clovis" would be "THERE AIN'T NO SUCH THING."
Something is wrong here. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption, and the Ice Capades. Something is definitely wrong. This is not good work. If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed.
-- George Carlin
-- George Carlin
Yes!Minimalist wrote:Good idea.
Of course, the dictionary definition for "pre-Clovis" would be "THERE AIN'T NO SUCH THING."
But we could have our own non-Club glossary.
AIT - no such bloody thing ever happened!
Ishtar of Ishtar's Gate and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.