Civilization question?

[woodrabbit]

Forum Monk, I ve been thinking about your post below from earlier this morning while I have been off doing errands.

Don't want to sound like I'm picking on Wood so anyone can answer this.

How can you have confidence the Shaman's report of the otherside of the glacier is real and not some mere hallucination brought on by an altered state of consiousness? Much like the so-called after-life experience of the clinically dead who "go down the tunnel to the light" may be a manifestation of the oxygen starved brain, according to some researchers. The shaman "reality" of the spirit world may not be reality at all rather an elaborate fantasy (interpretation) which emerges from a physical part of our brain wiring which has long since gone dormant in ordinary humans.

I can see there has been much dialogue/posts since then, and I want to take the time to read them more carefully....

....but regarding your post above from this AM, .... don't feel picked on.....but do find it curious that science and the Shamanic tradition is/can be seen as antithetical. Despite that we elect leaders on this side of the pond that can't or won't, surely the rest of us can hold two seemingly contradictory thoughts at the same time....if not only for the sport of it.

It was the very serious science of comparative anthropology in the hands of the emminent Harvard Scholar Mircea Eliade that connected the dots of world shamanic traditions. Seeing the practice/tradition as being essentially the same whether chasing reindeer, iguanas or saber tooth tigers. Again, the same serious science has the mega drug companys sending young hardy ethnologists into the jungle to pick the brains of the last living shamans as to their unique plant knowledge so bucks can be made if not a life or two enhanced or saved.

As to:

How can you have confidence the Shaman's report of the otherside of the glacier is real and not some mere hallucination brought on by an altered state of consiousness?

Like anything else it is rational to appraise the efficacy of the tradition and practitioner,....diplomas on the wall, recommendations from those you trust, effect on your own life, etc.

If I can quote Ishtar:

The only way to really find out about what shamanism really is, is to try it. It’s an experiential process. It’s not a set of beliefs or a dogma or god you have to believe in and worship on Sundays

I'm thinking that the I Ching is undisputably the oldest book on the planet, if you include those inscribed heat cracked turtle shells. It is, to this day, a very accessable membrane between worlds unseen and ours, as how to proceed in Ordinary Reality in the spirit/model of the "superior man". If you are game, this could be a non threatening way to "dabble" in the Shamanic.

I've been using it for 40 years, it has helped me navigate the politics of graduate school, buisiness, investments as well as steer me towards my lovely mate. No need to pay any attention to my own experience... but you might want to take in into consideration the billions of Chinese who have sworn by it for the last (ducumented) 2500yrs.

[john]

I'll try and answer you both together, Monk, Dig and War Arrow.

But can I first of all say that I find myself in an odd position on this board. I never quite know where to draw the line between discussing my own experiences of shamanism, or just talking about shamans in the third person - how they are today and also my research on how they were in the past.

It is not my intention or wish, though, to try persuade anyone about my experiences. I don't feel the need to do so and I'm sure others also don't need me to do so. So perhaps it was a mistake to mention any prophecy that I have done.

But what started all this up today was woodrabbit’s post about how Frances Crick had discovered the structure of DNA while in an altered state. This is itself would indicate that the altered state is not just purely imaginary, make believe and recreational and thus of no use to man nor beast ....in the same way that we know south American shamans have discovered the medicinal properties of plants by entering the trance state.

So - purely in the interests of trying to answer your question and not because I'm trying to bring anyone round to my way of thinking, can I propose to you the following model.

We know the realm of the imagination exists, because everything we see around us, from the chair we're sitting on, the home we live in and the computer we're looking at started off in the realm of imagination. Somebody had the idea to make a chair in that way, and they visualised it initially before putting it down on paper as a design. So that’s a valid space from which we work – the realm of imagination, even though we can’t see it in a material way.

So this realm of the imagination – where is it?

To go back to woodrabbit’s analogy, what if the realm of the imagination is just the one eighth of an iceberg that we see above the waterline? We cannot see the other seven-eighths supporting and feeding it, but it doesn’t mean it’s not there. And if we are really brave, we might dive into the cold water to see it.

Some may think that the shamanic technique it’s not a rational approach to discovering the truth. But how far has rationalism brought us? The trouble with the rationalist is that he minimises everything he doesn’t understand. He has to, because he starts off from the idea that everything is explainable, and that mystery is in some sense, the enemy.

Because the molecular biologist can’t see what 97 per cent of what our DNA does, he calls it “junk DNA”. Because the scientist can only account for 5 per cent of the universe, he calls the rest of it “dark matter”. Or because scientists only know what 6-8 per cent of the brain does, they say that we only use that percentage. Anything rather than admit that there’s a huge mystery out there ...and that we’re a long way off from seeing the full picture.

The only way to really find out about what shamanism really is, is to try it. It’s an experiential process. It’s not a set of beliefs or a dogma or god you have to believe in and worship on Sundays.

If you’d like to learn more about whether or how shamans prophecy, I can heartily recommend Mircae Eliade’s book: Shamanism, Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy. Eliade was Professor at Religion at Harvard and the first person to bring together all the anthropological research on shamans worldwide. In his book, based on academic reports, you can read about how part of the shaman’s role was to divine or read the future for his tribe.

I hope this helps.

All -

Check out the "Out of Africa Busted" thread.

Essentially, Bednarik is arguing that

1.) Cognitive ability is not a secondary characteristic of an assumed physical evolution from Robust to Gracile.

2.) In fact, fully developed cognitive abilities go back - at least - close to a million years ago among several human "tribes", which are incorrectly assumed to be "species" incapable of interbreeding.

3.) Cognition-driven choice was and is the accelerant for the very rapidly developed set of linear genetic and cultural distinctions incorrectly interpreted as the "Out of Africa" diaspora.

The points above don't even cover a tenth of Bednarik's ground........

But I want to get to shamanism.

Definition: What we call Shamanism reflects pretty accurately how far we have cognitively drifted from direct apprehension of the universe in the last million years.

It emphasizes our separation from the real, rather than our connection with the real.

A shaman is a person miraculously connected with the real, nevermind the blood sweat & tears it took to get there.

For those with the bicameral cognition, shamanism didn't exist - because there was/is no separation.

Just exactly as with those who are one with the Tao. If you ask them, they will give you a blank look and ask you just what the f..k you are talking about. Yes indeedy.

Similarly, the great Zen statement, that, if you are fortunate enough

To meet the Buddha on the road,

Kill the son of a bitch,

Because he is by definition an imposter.



Shamanism only exists as a highly developed technique for crossing this cognitive divide to the real - not to alternative realities -

Therefore the correct unwillingness of posters in this thread

To define themselves as shamans.

Instead, the phrase is "shamanic practitioner",

Which accurately delineates the difference between

The practise of a technique

vs.

Continuous undivided and immediate perception of the whole

Which includes past present future as a single entity.

So,

Imagination, then, would be

Our million year old footprints

In the clay of the cave of the

Bicameral.


hoka hey


john

[rich]

John:
Forgive me for not understanding correctly then. I would have thought that what you ascribed to shaman is inert. According to your definition he would have to remain inert or un-interactive to be a shaman. In my mind I was thinking - he may remain aware of all things interconnecting and the multiplicities of their interconnections, but he would still focus on a certain aspect to react or interact.
Along that reasoning then a practitioner would be one who practices the technique but in truth is not a full shaman (ie: they still need to find their way all the way there).
I felt:
How could one exposed to true shamanism lose awareness of it so as to have to find their way back for a brief period. There would be no brief period of the realizations - but that does not mean you would need to focus on all at the same time - the awareness of them and self is sufficient.
Think of what you said about your first touchstone - has the stark reality of it changed? Even after all these years? That awakening is there to stay.
Our first teacher was life and shall remain so. It’s language was instilled in us at birth. Our parents or whatever caretakers we had were our second teachers. They instilled their language into us but we could only understand it because of life. Without the original knowledge life had given us we never would have even begun to understand it.

[Ishtar]

I will say one thing and agree with Rich and Ishtar. I think we are seeing the tip of the iceberg so to speak. But the 3/4s which is underwater has not been seen; neither by shamans nor priests. (science will be the last to glimpse it, imo)

FM, what are you basing that supposition on?

[Ishtar]

Rich, I've read through John's post three times to see where you're getting this 'inert' idea from, and I cannot see it.

Perhaps it's a misunderstanding?

If anything, the shaman sees everything as alive and interconnected, as opposed to our modern day thinking that divides everything into inert and alive. For instance, because of the change of consciousness he regularly undergoes by travelling into other dimensions or as John would say, his 'connection with the real', a shaman sees a rock or a crystal as being alive. He sees mountains and trees as beings with a consciousness that communicate to him. The wind talks to him, the sun smiles at him, the grass sings to him ....

This is because the change of consciousness he undergoes while in the altered state changes forever the way he sees this world, this reality. He would say that he sees it in a more holistic way, in a more real way. He would say that we only see certain matter as inert because our scientific instruments are not yet sophisticated enough to pick up the evidence of this life.

I think, too, we're getting a llittle hung up on the definition of a shaman and shamanic practitioner. The word 'shaman' is Siberian anyway, and thus these kinds of mystic practitioners (for want of a better word) were known by different names in different places. In India, he was known as the hota. In native American tribes, he was known as the medicine man. In Indonesia, the dukon. To the Inuit, he was the angakok. The Norse female shamans were known as volvas. In China, the tang-ki. And so on.

So all of these are just people who travel across the three dimensions (upper, lower and middle worlds) to find and bring back guidance, healing or information for their tribe. That is also what shamanic practitioners do ... it's just someone who practises what the shamans did of old. They go to same dimensions, for the same reasons.

This idea about whether they are "a full shaman" or not comes from religious hierarchical models ... but these don't exist in shamanism.

[rich]

It probably is a misunderstanding again on my part. I took the following to mean it or at least that it is suggestive of it:

"Continuous undivided and immediate perception of the whole

Which includes past present future as a single entity"

Again, as I have said - I have very little understanding in this area so I hope I'm not making the wrong statements. Sorry again for the misunderstandings.

[Ishtar]

Rich, please don't worry...if you misunderstand, it's probably because we don't always explain this too well...

Please ask away, if you have any questions. I'm always happy to answer them ...or try to anyway!

[rich]

Thanks, Ish. Do you do other things besides the healing?

[Ishtar]

Well, I made a belated new year resolution yesterday not to talk about my own experiences in shamanism on this board, but talk about what shamans do generally.

So shamans perform healings (extractions, soul retrievals etc) and sometimes, if you're lucky, their very presence is healing because of the way the energy reacts around them. They can give guidance in the form of divining or prophesy. They also have other duties to do with healing the planet in a more general way - sending energy to break up negative thought forms that can form from the collective consciousness over whole continents, re-energising the Earth's matrix ...that sort of thing. And they also act as psychopomps, carrying the souls of the dead, that have got stuck in the middle dimension, to their rightful place.

[rich]

I guess sort of like Reiki - if I spelled it right?

[Ishtar]

NOTHING like Reiki, I can assure you.

I used to be a Reiki Master - and while I would say there is some small, temporary benefit conferred by the Reiki practitioner, I'd also say that comparing Reiki to shamanism is like comparing a push bike to a Maserati.

[rich]

LOL - ok. It just seemed to sound the same to me in the sense that both are into healing I guess. Just wasn't sure if it was also into anything else.
Anyways - you have a good one - gotsta git me catnap again. Enjoy!

[Ishtar]

War Arrow – Here’s your requested feedback.

Thanks for such an interesting and well thought out post. Obviously, I can’t respond to it in detail as we would be here until next Christmas. Suffice to say, I agree with much of it, and also I would slightly differ with Monk’s view on this:

"...by the time of Christ all religion and all thought seemed to turn from the old worship and study of vitality, potency, power, to the study of death and death-rewards, death-penalties, and morals. All religion, instead of being religion of life, here and now, became religion of postponed destiny, death, and reward afterwards..."
- Apocalypse D.H. Lawrence, 1931

Although DHL said, ‘by the time of Christ’, I don’t believe you meant that that solely applied to Judaeo Christianity, and imo, you’d be right. Although the JCs use heaven as a reward and hell as a punishment, other religions have their own other-worldly consequences. For instance, the Hindus (long after shamanism was gone) invented karma – i.e. do good in this life and you will have a better situation in the next life. Buddha also preached this doctrine, although his ultimate aim was liberation from all lifetimes – by burning or transcending the seeds of karma – for karma, read the JC ‘sin’.

Basically, this promise of the hereafter was common to all religions because what they couldn’t give, post shamanism, was a benefit in the here and now. And they could promise, or threaten, any number of things about the hereafter because, with no shamans now around to correct them as to the true reality of the realms of the dead, who was going to be able to come back and tell them that they were wrong?

I believe science came out of what be could be seen as an extreme irritation with the false promises of religion. It was a clearing of the decks, if you like, to reduce everything down to the material, the palpable, the what-could-be-verified by the five senses. Unfortunately, my view is that they threw the baby out with the bath water. But then I can't think of any other way that they would be able to throw off all the nonsense and superstition, and so it was a natural progression to common sense. However, I believe we are only half way through the story ....

So thanks for giving us such an interesting piece to read, and also I was glad to gain an insight into your thinking as we don’t normally hear much about it, given your specialised interest.

[Minimalist]

And, let's not forget Zoroaster.....

"Zoroaster was thus the first to teach the doctrines of an individual judgment, Heaven and Hell, the future resurrection of the body, the general Last Judgment, and life everlasting for the reunited soul and body. These doctrines were to become familiar articles of faith to much of mankind, through borrowings by Judaism, Christianity and Islam; yet it is in Zoroastrianism itself that they have their fullest logical coherence....” - Mary Boyce, Op. Cit. p. 29.

http://www.avesta.org/

[War Arrow]

Rich, Ishtar, FM (and anyone else) - thanks for time and effort taken to read my thing, and particularly thanks for feedback. I am humbled.
True, did focus on Abrahamic faith, probably as the most extreme example of (I think) a religion that has diverged from its (I suspect) originally vaguely investigative source and become almost entirely political. I suspect certain other faiths (notably Hinduism and Buddhism I'm told) may have more in common with my subject (in this case) than not, so I let them be.
FM - the apples and oranges point, I'm in complete agreement with. Er... thought I'd avoided that being as I suppose the aspects of religion I'm discussing (modern political and older adaptative) are essentially two different things - thus yeilding apples, oranges, and er plums. I suppose. Will take another look as it's a few years old now.