Shamanism

From The Maze Where Realities Converge - the psychedelic encyclopedia of reality from The Ultimate Comment

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Shamans (pronounced shah-man, not shay-man) are men who are very intelligent. Now, when I say intelligent, I don't mean that they have stuff like abstract reasoning skills; I mean that they have understanding, man, comprehension. You dig? Gnosis, baby, gnosis. And with with intelligence comes power, see?

Shamanism is a tradition about as old as language. There were and are shamans all over the gaff: Irish druids, Navajo Hatałii, Hawai'ian Kahuna, Mapuche Machi, Korean mudangs, Peruvian curanderos, Siberian šamán and Jedis from longlongagoinagalaxyfarfaraway.

They are the wizards of consciousness. Shamanic practise involves gaining control of the mind (both one's own mind and the minds of others) by gaining understanding of it. And if you understand the nature of consciousness enough, you can get it to do all sorts of things for you. The mind can heal the body. The mind can influence other minds. The mind can unlock the potential of the muscles. Shamans work with altered states of consciousness to develop this control.
Shamanism exists in cultures where university administrators have not yet chopped human exploration up into categories, so the shaman is simultaneously magician, scientist, artist, philosopher, healer, priest and psychologist. Shamanic magick is the sort of magick that uses astral travel to enter a different reality and conduct your work there. It is distinct from ceremonial or ritual magick, in which work is done in the physical world. Shamanic cultures do not generally make the same distinction between the 'real' world and the 'merely imagined' world of dream and hallucination. (How patronizing that 'merely' is! And how foolish!)

Shamanic altered states are sometimes acheived by drugs like ayahuasca and Datura, and by methods involoving dreams. Most commonly, however, shamans use a repetitive drumbeat to enter a trance. Sounds mild? Try it. Our research projects here at The Ultimate Comment Institute of Psychonautic Insanity show that a basic 220bpm click track made with Audacity software soon completely takes over your consciousness.

Shamans travel out of their body and explore the realm they find their. Across all cultures, they generally find the same places: the Underworld, entered by a hole in the ground like a cave or a well, Outer Space, the axis mundi a Dimensional Transfunctioner that exists in and connects all the different worlds.

Shamanism has been popularized in the West by Michael Harner - who studied with various shamanic cultures and came up with a synthesis he calls 'Core Shamanism' - and Carlos Castaneda, who claims to have studied with the Yaqui Indians, but is now widely considered a fraud. The authenticity of what Casteneda and Harner teach is, of course, as irrelevant as the Pope's opinion on sex; what is relevant is whether their methods work. Castaneda's complete works are here and Harner's key book 'The Way of The Shaman' is here. Tad James, NLP zealot, is trying to sell what he claims is the Hawai'ian system, Huna. Here's a book on Huna.

Phil Hine's writings on what he calls modern shamanism are very worthwhile. Get them here.

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