Archaeologica.org

rich wrote:Dig - don't get me wrong. I'm not saying drawings and such were just related to shamanic stuff.

Neither am I, and nor is anyone else that I'm quoting in this field.

Frankly I suspect that many of the pictures, carvings etc are Shamanic. I say that on the basis of logic, which by my own argument is automatically flawed by the difficulty in associating our conceptions with those from the past.
In other words we interpret the pictures with a 21C mind with no evidence to support it. What of the 'Venuses'?

Some anthropologists have ascribed the Venuses to fertility - but fertility has a different meaning in the shamanic. It's not about having babies. It's about traversing the realms of birth, death and rebirth.

From Lewis Williams:

For example, the Inuits believe that the passage to the igloo is symbolic of the vagina. Consequently, their word ani means 'to go out of an igloo' and 'to be born'. ...Among the same people, a shaman who is about to fly away during a trance is bound down with a seal line that represents the umbilical cord. His passage to the spirit realm is like a birth, but he has to remain connected to the earthly abode.

The widespread nature of such beliefs is explained by human neurology; as we have seen, both passage through a vortex (that can be readily construed as birth) and flight are hard wired into human brains.

Ish, good to hear your good clear voice again.

BTW, you described my dream job, a page or 2 back.

Hey..woodrabbit! Good to hear you.

Yeah, I know. It's making me laugh how we're being treated like such iconoclasts when most of the archaeologists of the sites under discussion here have probably got shamanic practitioners on their pay roles.

Some anthropologists have ascribed the Venuses to fertility

So if they have a Shamanic basis the anthropologists have got it wrong, presumably because they/we look at things through modern eyes.

Among a number of quirky things, I am an overqualified draftsman. It has crossed my mind to see if the folks excavating Gobekli Tepe need one.

I had no intention of building an ivory tower. For one thing ivory would be an expensive and impractical building material.

Okay... I'll try to say exactly what I mean this time, to get to the essence of my reservations.

I regard science not as a dogma but simply as a process. One has a finding or theory, one makes comparisons and, if necessary, either you examine your theory or finding in greater depth based upon whatever possibility may have arisen from those comparisons, or discard it altogether if said comparisons shows it up to be the proverbial 'pile of fetid dingos kidneys'. The very nature of this process demands that, if practiced faithfully, it must be questioned and reassessed, otherwise it is, as has been observed, dogma, usually preserved in order to either save money on having to reprint textbooks or else keeping somebody in a job. Hence this whole "club" thing. I accept there are such things as vested interests and fragile reputations, but at the same time it seems there is a fine line between legitimate questioning of orthodoxy and simply dismissing a relatively well established idea on the grounds that if it doesn't fit in with one's own idea it must therefore automatically be part of the orthodoxy, or the dogma, or the club agenda.

I accept I may be overeacting but for this reason I tend to sometimes be a little sceptical when some claim or observation invokes a conspiracy - although no-one has said anything so extreme here (unless I've missed it) it seems like a potential thin end of a wedge with the fat end of said wedge being 1970s paperbacks featuring blurbs containing phrases like "scientists may mock but..." or "at last the truth they tried to keep secret can be revealed"... you know the sort of thing.

Not everything can be deduced from mitochondrial DNA I know. All I'm suggesting (I suppose) is that a degree of caution is necessary when invoking ideas or theories of a more obviously interpretative nature. I'm sure your posts aren't boring Ishtar, and those upon which I may comment by virtue of their being Venn diagramable (!) with my own sphere of knowledge certainly are not boring, so I apologise for strongly implying that this was so. The boringness of which I spoke was, I suppose to be fair, my own inability to engage with the subject as a whole rather than a value judgement of specific posts or posters.

One might therefore suggest that I make efforts to engage with the subject as a whole. Unfortunately I find this difficult, at least in terms of the great depth to which you and John appear to have studied it. Here, I should stress I am attempting to explain my reaction rather than offer any prescription for how others might like to tailor their comments in order to keep me happy.

I do not wish to automatically devalue the potential worth of a shamanic perspective (although quite what that constitutes may be open to debate). Without access to the DNA of ancestral thought, on account of there being no such thing, I suggest it really is a case of running things up the flagpole and seeing how well they work. For example, when I first got into the whole you-know-where thing, it started out as erm... a painting project for want of a better term (apologise here for use of word project, always the mark of a scoundrel) conducted as a sort of intuitive attempt to comprehend a mind state (one in which human sacrifice ain't no big thang, in this instance) by immersion in visual/semiotic language of the same. It was helpful. It went places. It lead to other things, and I finally learnt how to paint properly (as was practiced up until about 1930 ). It wasn't a scientific process by any description but I nevertheless found it very useful. So yes, if there's something to be said, then it should at least be heard (providing ancient astronauts aren't involved), although I'm not sure the simple fact of there being something possibly worth saying places whatever is said on equal footing with (for example) something deduced by carbon dating.

Additionally, as I'm afraid I may have made painfully aware, my scepticism tends to go nuclear where I suspect there may be a danger of contemporary thinking and reasoning being conveniently superimposed upon the motives of those living long ago. Also I am sceptical of the thinking which suggests that because they do such and such amongst a certain tribal comunity, this must necessarily be why they did such and such in ancient Pelucidar. Different cultures have, or have had, different reasons for doing different things at different times. I'm waffling... examples:

Two that spring to mind are firstly a booklet called Native american Traditions by Arthur Verluis - I should've known better, and realised my mistake when I got to the passage espousing the wonder of Native American spirituality over the evils of (choke) "scientistic thinking" ("Scientistic? Wife, bring me my hobnail boots!") - the thing that really fucking irritates me about this is the assumption that all non-western/contemporary or supposedly primitive modes of thought need the safety net of "spirituality" because, being "primitives", anything these people ever came up with is automatically colourful, cute, quaint and er... well, you couldn't use it to fix a TV set to watch all those great National Geographic documentaries about the spirituality of native types now could you?
I am of the belief that religious traditions, particularly the older religious traditions represent entirely valid attempts by humans to understand their environment in terms that made sense at the time (which I think is also what John said and what I was trying to say in that essay I linked to elsewhere). I resent the fallacy that someone who believes in sky gods (in context) is necessarily any less intelligent than a modern day meteorologist, although I would argue that this is absolutely not the same as saying that each has an equally valid perspective irrespective of cultural context. This is why I'm afraid I feel a little sceptical of shamanism (sorry - probably wrong word) in a contemporary (western) context. There's a health food shop near here run by a bloke who claims to be a shaman. This seems to me, possibly uninformed as I may be, somewhat akin to creationism (subscribing to ideas which might be deemed more appropriate to earlier times) and, I would imagine, of dubious relevance to the so often idolised "primitive"upholders of "spiritual values" - a Tlamacazqui (priest) in ancient you-know-where pierced his own dobber, burnt incense, refused to wash, and offered sacrifices to various Gods surely because that was cutting edge thought in the context of time and place. Were I to perform the same ritual habits now it would be no more than an historical re-enactment, my own personal 'I heart the 1950s' broadway musical, so to speak. I'm finding this idea quite difficult to express but it annoys me when those of older cultures are described as primitive or necessarily spiritual for this latter categorisation implies adherence to some vague intuitive code which has no investigative quality - no wheel, thick as pigshit but FUCK were those guys spiritual! It's insulting and unhelpful.

Second book is one Burning Water in which the otherwise reputable Laurette Sejourne attempted to prove that human sacrifice and indeed violence itself never occured amongst the "spiritual" peoples of you-know-where - all those sculptures and hymns and painted books, she claimed, provided metaphors for 'humanity waging war upon its own lower nature' - the thing is Sejourne came up with some great stuff, although her central argument was a screamingly obvious product of its time (the 1960s) and was unfortunately utter cobblers.

So what I'm trying to say here, is not that I necessarily believe the examples above pertain to ANYONE posting hereabouts, but that such examples have, perhaps unfairly, made it difficult for me to take other intuitive approaches (albeit arguably intuitive approaches with a bit more substance) entirely seriously without experiencing a degree of doubt beyond that which I would have when on potentially safer, more orthodox (and yes more clubby) ground.

Christ. Not even sure if I've actually said what I meant to say in all that. Disclaimer: not having go at anyone here, just trying to be as clear as possible about my reservations. I love you all as though you were my own family.

short version: different approaches by all means, but please be aware that some may present inherent problems when given as an objective statement. Also, science is your friend, not your enemy. And also, any theory or idea which needs to bolster itself up at the expense of another ostensibly more credible or supportable theory is surely open to question (I'm talking here about the odd "so-called scientists" type comments).

Ugh. Now for a ciggy.

I'm not saying it's wrong, Digit. But if you can make a good case for much of what else is discovered in the vicinity being of a shamanic origin, then it makes sense to apply the same thinking to the Venuses. It's just a theory, like any other.

We have worries today in modern society about fertility. It's become a major problem in the West. In the UK, one in seven couples pay a fortune for fertility treatment and the reasons for this are thought to be linked to the lifestyles we lead these days, although nobody really knows.

However, that's a modern concern. Neolithic man led a different, and one would think healthier, lifestyle in that at least he wasn't sitting at a desk all day. And we have no evidence (or that I'm aware of) to lead us to believe that he had difficulty in conceiving offspring.

So the shamanic reason, all else being equal, is a go-er, in my view.

Hello War Arrow,

I hear what you say. Can I just say, though, that I only tend to get into 'shamanic versus science' when I feel painted into a corner by others.

I feel that I have to defend my views against those who say they are unscientific and not just the honest and upfront disagreers who at least I can respect the views of. It's the less honest posters who just diss me by either ignoring me, trying to move me from "their thread" and when all that fails, ridiculing me by referring to widespread and respected theories as 'my pet theories', responding that they are 'bringing back the reality', comparing me to Daybrown, Arch and Marduk - it's death by a thousand cuts. That's what I mean by Club tactics and ivory towers.. .not the quality of their research, but their attitude and their tactics when someone is highlighting something they don't want to look at.

Ishtar wrote:Hello War Arrow,

I hear what you say. Can I just say, though, that I only tend to get into 'shamanic versus science' when I feel painted into a corner by others.

I feel that I have to defend my views against those who say they are unscientific and not just the honest and upfront disagreers who at least I can respect the views of. It's the less honest posters who just diss me by either ignoring me, trying to move me from "their thread" and when all that fails, ridiculing me by referring to widespread and respected theories as 'my pet theories', responding that they are 'bringing back the reality', comparing me to Daybrown, Arch and Marduk - it's death by a thousand cuts. That's what I mean by Club tactics and ivory towers.. .not the quality of their research, but their attitude and their tactics when someone is highlighting something they don't want to look at.

Duly noted. I too have felt a little 'painted into a corner' in some respects, and also like Dig, myself and FM had inadvertently become the iconoclasts, so I guess it's just where we happen to be stood at the time.

Having said that, this thread has been very educational and I feel I have a better understanding of where both John and yourself are coming from (and I mean that as a good thing), so I shall make efforts to not act in a knobesque manner in future.

One final thing though, we're all aware of Arch, but given that the guy is presently unable to defend his position hereabouts, can we all please stop taking potshots at him. I hardly agree with anything he said, but always found him fairly personable, and of us here I think Min was most heavily engaged with Arch debates - so Min's comments (irrespective of whether I agree) seem fair enough and he's sort of qualified to offer said comments. When folks didn't actually directly encounter Arch it feels a bit like bullying.

Group hug everyone.





































Okay. That's enough. As you were.

I have personally encountered Arch, at some length, WA, in one of my many incarnations on another board. So according to your criteria, I am entitled. But I take your point that the guy is not here to defend himself, and so perhaps that rule should apply to Min too! Sorry Min!

I just read through your (very entertaining if a little Lennie-Bruce-stream of-consciousness) post again, and I picked up something about a weird guy in a health food shop and ...

This seems to me, possibly uninformed as I may be, somewhat akin to creationism (subscribing to ideas which might be deemed more appropriate to earlier times) and, I would imagine, of dubious relevance to the so often idolised "primitive"upholders of "spiritual values" - a Tlamacazqui (priest) in ancient you-know-where pierced his own dobber, burnt incense, refused to wash, and offered sacrifices to various Gods surely because that was cutting edge thought in the context of time and place. Were I to perform the same ritual habits now it would be no more than an historical re-enactment, my own personal 'I heart the 1950s' broadway musical, so to speak ...

...and I realised from this that you think shamanism is a bunch of ideas or ritutals copied from far-flung, back to the earth, outcrops of still-existing shamanic cultures. It's not. It's a practical experience .. .and now I'm going to have to break my new years' resolution that I only made 10 days ago to explain why.

My own teacher, which I find frustrating at times, actually makes it a point not to tell us anything. He just teaches us how to go on a shamanic journey into other dimensions, and meet who we want to meet there, and make of it what we will. It's all up to us.

So in my first ever shamanic journey, I visited the realms of the dead...but because of this teaching method, I had no idea that I had visited the realms of the dead until we did psychopomp work as a class, 18 months later.

In other words, it matters not a sausage what you believe in shamanism. It's what you experience that counts.

This is why it's not like religion and it's particularly not like creationism ... and although you're quite right to say that there's no reason why you should take an interest in matters shamanic, I think if you are going to comment on it, or react to it in the way you have been, I would recommend that you find out a little bit more about it, so that at least you won't be reacting from a false premise or tilting at windmills. Just get a little more info about it - it doesn't have to be from the weird guy at the health food shop!

Dare I Say it?

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".

so Min's comments (irrespective of whether I agree) seem fair enough and he's sort of qualified to offer said comments.

Don't remind me.

Forum Monk wrote:Dare I Say it?

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".

Forum Monk -

Dare I say it?

Science is not Shamanic because it is not experiential. Claiming scientific testimony as evidence is akin to claiming the existence and nature of "Scientific Evidence" as based on "Career Advancement."


hoka hey


john