The study of religious or heroic legends and tales. One constant rule of mythology is that whatever happens amongst the gods or other mythical beings was in one sense or another a reflection of events on earth. Recorded myths and legends, perhaps preserved in literature or folklore, have an immediate interest to archaeology in trying to unravel the nature and meaning of ancient events and traditions.
Shamanism is not scientific because it is not testable. Claiming experiential testimony as evidence is akin to claiming the existence and nature of God and heaven based on a "near death experience".
No-one is saying that shamanism is scientific - any more than the theory of the descent of man from a common ancestor - which is also not testable - is scientific.
A scientific theory has to be something more than just a theory a scientist comes up with, as opposed to a theory someone else comes up with.
However, the theories about the consciousness of the Neolithic people are well constructed and well worth listening to. They're not just based on the experiential, although that is a component. They're also based on how those whose shamanic tradition stretches back thousands of years are still living today, as their ancestors did, and how their experience of other dimensions colours everything they do in their lives, right down to how they design their houses, based on their interior, mental cosmos - and how these can be compared to the structures in ancient Near East sites like Catal Hoyuk and Gobekli Tepe.
Shamanism is not scientific because it is not testable. Claiming experiential testimony as evidence is akin to claiming the existence and nature of God and heaven based on a "near death experience".
No-one is saying that shamanism is scientific - any more than the theory of the descent of man from a common ancestor - which is also not testable - is scientific.
A scientific theory has to be something more than just a theory a scientist comes up with, as opposed to a theory someone else comes up with.
However, the theories about the consciousness of the Neolithic people are well constructed and well worth listening to. They're not just based on the experiential, although that is a component. They're also based on how those whose shamanic tradition stretches back thousands of years are still living today, as their ancestors did, and how their experience of other dimensions colours everything they do in their lives, right down to how they design their houses, based on their interior, mental cosmos - and how these can be compared to the structures in ancient Near East sites like Catal Hoyuk and Gobekli Tepe.
Ishtar -
Which brings us right back to Julian Jaynes..........
However, I will jump back to experiential commentary vs. scientific evidence.
Scientific evidence is the postmortem evaluation of past experiential commentary, whether expressed by weapon points, art, cordage, boats, or hematite.
The shamanic is the present continuation of tens of thousands of years of experiential commentary. It is "live."
Need I say more?
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."
Or maybe it's like this... at first, when I was saying in the Darwin Online thread that I didn't believe there was a common ancestor, other posters were replying 'Well, in that case, you must be a creationist.'
At first, there was a reluctance to examine my views as, the thought went, "if she doesn't believe in the scientific explanation, then she must believe in the religious one."
It was difficult to get over the idea that not everything has to fall into these two opposing camps - and that there could be a third way of looking at things.
John and Ishtar.... as you might imagine, I'm with you guys on this one, AND I'm up late (EST).
Always felt Julian Jaynes pryed open a hugely important door.... (makes me wish he was still alive or I went to Princeton.....actually both)...... but always suspected that he may have mistaken his metaphor for a solid object. Beagle would insist that JJ has been thoroughly vilified, but I am convinced that there is much in his theoretical attic that is still very saleable.
... a quote from Ishtar by way of John:
No-one is saying that shamanism is scientific
... but surely the study of Shamanism is indeed scientific.
BTW...speaking of membranes.....how are you guys keeping track of all your threads?...
Well, come to think of it, it's certainly evidence-based. The shaman has to go into the other dimensions and come back with the goods. It's no good just believing in it. He has to do it.
Also, to some extent, shamanism is testable, as Mircae Eliade proved by bringing together anthropologists' accounts of shamans worldwide, from India to Lapland, Siberia to Australia, Indonesia to South America, and found that even though they lived thousands of miles apart and had never met, they were reporting the same experiences of the same three worlds, ie. the shamanic flight to the upper world of spirits or descent into the lower world of animals and ancestors.
woodrabbit wrote:Boats I get, have been meaning to ask John about his Original/original Hematite reference, at least on the forum, but....Televison?!
Just break down the word according to its etymology. 'Tele' = over a distance and 'vision' needs no translation. Shamans in completely disparate locations, thousands of miles apart whose cultures had never met, journey to the same places with commonly agreed features. In the case of the Amazonian shamans, Jeremy Narby calls it 'forest television'.
The treating of their dead with hematite, or red paint made of it, is the one common feature of all these Neolithic sites. For instance, Catalhoyuk has red alcoves painted with hematite, and the floor boards under which the dead were buried are also painted with hematite.
But John can tell you more about hematite .... he's got a PhD in it!
Dig, I don't read John as saying that science needs to be replaced and every time one of you guys decides that that is what we are saying, we all have to dash back to our opposing trenches, which is a shame when we are all enjoying the Christmas Day football match.
I read John as saying that the shamanic way uses a different approach to that of science in examining what went on in the past. And as you yourself have pointed out, science hasn't and most likely never will, come up for a way for us to measure how people thought. So why not give another approach a chance?
Well, I'm afraid reading some of the above caused my eyebrows to sail rapidly up my forehead as you might expect, but lacking energy, authoritative understanding of what you're all talking about, or the will to extend this debate further, I'm taking a live and let live viewpoint.
Having said that, Ishtar - you have cleared certain things up for me to an extent. There's a fantastic book by Dr. T.J. Knab called A War of Witches in which the author "investigates" (much to his unease) the contemporary Mexican land of the dead - experienced as dreams whilst living in a rural part of Mexico. My take on this is that whether his experiences are simply down to suggestion (which I tend to believe) or subconscious travels (?) in an actual land of the dead (which I have some difficulty believing) may be irrelevant as both explanations could be taken as amounting to the same thing. Anyway, I'm tentatively assuming you're cut from T.J.Knab cloth rather than Mr. Health Food Shop cloth - that's a complement by the way. If you haven't heard of said book, it's worth looking out for as I suspect you may enjoy it.
War Arrow wrote:Well, I'm afraid reading some of the above caused my eyebrows to sail rapidly up my forehead as you might expect, but lacking energy, authoritative understanding of what you're all talking about, or the will to extend this debate further, I'm taking a live and let live viewpoint.
Having said that, Ishtar - you have cleared certain things up for me to an extent. There's a fantastic book by Dr. T.J. Knab called A War of Witches in which the author "investigates" (much to his unease) the contemporary Mexican land of the dead - experienced as dreams whilst living in a rural part of Mexico. My take on this is that whether his experiences are simply down to suggestion (which I tend to believe) or subconscious travels (?) in an actual land of the dead (which I have some difficulty believing) may be irrelevant as both explanations could be taken as amounting to the same thing. Anyway, I'm tentatively assuming you're cut from T.J.Knab cloth rather than Mr. Health Food Shop cloth - that's a complement by the way. If you haven't heard of said book, it's worth looking out for as I suspect you may enjoy it.
I was going to say to you, don't you think these ancient Mexican types were all shamanic before Cortez landed? From their mythology, which I have had some little experience with, I'd say that they were.
Still say you're all barking though.
Possibly, but at least we don't get involved with strange groups whose sound "combined elements from industrial, Scottish folk music, punk rock and pop music. Their [Academy 23's] successful merging of folk and industrial music made them one of the earliest exponents of the genre of music that would come to be known as 'neo-folk'."
john wrote:Scientific evidence is the postmortem evaluation of past experiential commentary, whether expressed by weapon points, art, cordage, boats, or hematite.
The shamanic is the present continuation of tens of thousands of years of experiential commentary. It is "live."
Need I say more?
Yes, I think you and Ishtar need say more because
science and esotericism are mutually exclusive.
Science for example can describe things that can never be experienced.
Shamanism can explain things that can never be measured.
But I do not think they are complimentary.
In fact, just the opposite.
john wrote:Scientific evidence is the postmortem evaluation of past experiential commentary, whether expressed by weapon points, art, cordage, boats, or hematite.
The shamanic is the present continuation of tens of thousands of years of experiential commentary. It is "live."
Need I say more?
Yes, I think you and Ishtar need say more because
science and esotericism are mutually exclusive.
Science for example can describe things that can never be experienced.
Shamanism can explain things that can never be measured.
But I do not think they are complimentary.
In fact, just the opposite.
Forum Monk -
TWO irresistible moments in one evening. This is high living indeed.
I'll go back to one of my favorite transitional sources of Paleolithic thinking, the Tao Te Ching.
"Science for example can describe things that can never be experienced.
Shamanism can explain things that can never be measured."
They are not opposite.
They are complimentary apposites.
Rephrase your statement within the realm of Yin and Yan,
Which I argue is representational of the Paleolithic, Shamanic worldview.
You might be surprised by the symmetry of the result!
hoka hey
john
Last edited by john on Wed May 07, 2008 6:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"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."
