Subject: Have You Ever Seen A Shaman? April 18, 2008.
Here we have a person who claims to be a Shaman
explaining what a Shaman is.
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What is a Shaman?
Introduction
I am using the word shaman because of its
popularity: shamans have their own names for
themselves depending on their background and
location.
I call myself kupua, which is a Hawaiian
word for a shaman found among the traditions
of Polynesia. A kupua focuses on the essence
of a tool rather than it's ritual.
There are many definitions of shamanism,
but few mention the core of shamanistic belief
that I learned from my teachers. Most
definitions describe what shamans do rather
than what shamans believe.
Shamans use whatever tools they know that
seem appropriate for the circumstances. A
listing of these tools doesn't constitute
a precise meaning of the limits and
uniqueness of shamanism.
Almost all books on shamanism, both
scholarly works and popular books written
by "shamans", are about shaman tools and
descriptions of so-called shamanistic
ideas are presented in a very
unshamanistic way: shaman ideas are
described as if shamans believed them.
This limited view of shamanism is
understandable since shamans, when talking
to non-shamans and beginning students,
avoid frustrating attempts to discuss the
unreality of reality.
Much nonsense has been written about
shamanism. To quote just a few of many
examples: "The basis of shamanism is an
animistic view of nature"; "The main
principle of shamanism is the attempt
to control physical nature"; "A shaman
uses symbolic m-gic and a form of
feti****sm [where power rests in the
power of the shaman and rather than the
object]".
Observations like these are based on a
confusion between what a shaman "believes"
and what a shaman decides will be
effective in a certain circumstance in
one particular moment. Animism, used in
the sense of the belief that "s-irits"
are everywhere is different than using
a useful tool where the shaman is merely
acting as if everything has a sp-ritual
nature.
A warrior shaman may act as if he is
controlling "physical nature" (whatever that
is), but to a shaman who is more than an
apprentice, that is only a game: the belief
is unim****tant only the results are im****tant.
And finally, to a shaman, symbolic ma-ic
and fetishes are only tools, not statements
about reality.
A popular scholarly viewpoint is, "A shaman
enters altered states of consciousness and
travels to other realms." A shaman may even
actually say this if he is using the terms
of a scholar's view of reality: "altered
states" and "other realms" appear to be
reasonable terms to a person who believes
that "ordinary" reality is one thing and
"non-ordinary" reality is another; and that
each can be described as an absolute thing. A
shaman's world is filled with a sense of the
actuality of that world, but in a way that is
both the same and the opposite of a dictionary
definition of the word "reality".
Philosophers have struggled with questions of
reality throughout history. And every time
someone fancied he was getting close, there have
been other philosophers lurking in the shadows,
ready to gleefully discover assumptions beneath
the original assumptions: philosophy had an
informal "peer-review" thousands of years
before it became fa****onable in science (with
all its virtues and faults), although a
scientific peer-review is never concerned with
basic assumptions about reality after
centuries of labor even philosophers seldom
find that a worthwhile path.
Some shamanic ideas are found in expected
and unexpected places. Some of these ideas
make sense to many people the ideas sometimes
"feel" right and they sometimes seem to agree
with experience. I have often read that a
"kahuna" is a "Hawaiian shaman". (JW I once
had an o****tunity to go the Hawaii on a vacation.
I had previously read a lot about the Kahunas
of Hawaii. The first thing I did while over there
was to go to a M-taphysical Book Store and ask
how I might come in contact with a Kahuna. The
people running the store didn't think I would be
able to accomplish this on a short notice but
did give me the area where Kahunas were said to
have been seen. I went out to the area by car
with my friends but they didn't want to get
out, so I didn't meet any Kahuna.) There are
and were kahuna shamans, but they are two
distinct traditions. There were Druids
also that were shamans, but in both cases
they were rare. And, as might be guessed,
there were (and are) shamans in Polynesia
and Celtic areas that are not kahuna or
druids. A shaman is a healer but there are
few shamans among healers; today and even
in the distant past.
Collections of ideas like "huna", or
whatever anyone prefers to call the Hawaiian
esoteric tradition, have some shamanistic
ideas, but like similar traditions around
the world, are not shamanism. Shamanic ideas
are found in works like the B-ble, the
Kalevala, some Star Trek Television episodes,
among many other works. What separates these
works from shamanism is that the ideas are
perceived and presented as The Way Things Are,
while a shaman views All ideas as simply
useful or interesting. A shaman treats
beliefs as tools.
In this discussion, I describe shaman tools
only as they relate to shaman ideas. I have
chosen to present shaman ideas in an
unshamanistic way since I am trying to define
shamanism, not write about how to become a
shaman. Definitions are all made up. That
should be obvious to everybody, yet some
people imagine they have solved a problem
when they've stuck a label on something or
someone ("Understanding is the key.").
Definitions are not statements of reality,
they are tools of communication.
If I were writing a formal article on
philosophy, I would have defined some
statements more precisely. But since I am
writing a definition of shamanism, I didn't
want to obscure their general meaning by
adding hundreds of words of explanation.
Other statements I have added for their
emotional effect: I describe shaman ideas
by choosing words that will offend as many
people as possible a reaction to words
can start a person thinking through a
desire to prove the author is talking
obvious nonsense.
Yet, behind the words, the ideas
themselves are the fundamental core of
shamanism, I just hope shamans from other
traditions will still be able to recognize
their own ideas after I have reduced them
to their essential meaning! If you ask a
bunch of shamans what a shaman is, you will
get a bunch of answers. I am trying to
condense the essence all of those answers to
a common core.
I also hope to show you a way of looking
at things that you may find helpful. A
viewpoint that is not just a way of looking
at shamanism, but one that may increase the
peace and effectiveness in your life.
I worked as a systems analyst for over 25
years. During most of that time I called
myself a shaman. I became aware of how
close and related the study of the nature of
systems is to the study of shaman ideas. That's
why I have chosen this peculiar approach.
However, shamanism isn't an intellectual
exercise: it's a game involving body, mind,
and heart. We base our world on what we have
experienced; it isn't created by logic.
Years ago, Napoleon Hill wrote a book read
by millions called "Think and Grow Rich".
(JW I read that book many years ago and enjoyed
it very much.) If he had known, he would
have written a more useful book called "Feel
and Grow Rich".
Many shamans play a game of developing
power and insight through conflict and control
of personified things (the so-called way of the
warrior). Other shamans act as if power and
insight can best be achieved through love and
cooperation. These shamans de-personify things
and work with the effects of things and
conditions (what I call the way of harmony).
If a person tries to learn about shamanism
by studying what a shaman does, many things
will seem to be inconsistent and illogical,
especially if the person is a product of
Western thought. On the other hand, I have met
shamans (who may or may not call themselves
that) who do not have a clear conscious idea
of the core beliefs of a shaman, but are
successful at applying their own unconscious
core beliefs. Calling yourself a shaman doesn't
make you one. A shaman isn't created by some
sort of "initiation" or recognition or
acknowledgment, or by experiencing some "state
of consciousness".
"Shaman" isn't a title or a state of being, it
is a skill.
What is a Shaman?
Exploration
Thousands of years ago someone looked at his
or her beliefs and reduced them to a few
"self-evident" core beliefs about the world. A
person's world view is the collection of all
the logical (and illogical) extensions of these
self-evident "facts". Mathematicians call this
an "axiomatic system".
The vast majority of these axioms and
extensions are taught to us: some by other
people, some by the "world" we perceive
around us. Some are our own ideas. The
extensions are ideas "about" things, not
"what is".
But in every case we made a choice along
the way to accept or reject them: we are
responsible for who we are.
No one can prove their own axioms to anyone
else if the other person has a different set of
axioms.
With an axiomatic system, by its very nature,
the best that we can hope for is to make it
"internally" consistent and "internally"
complete. In practice, this only works for
relatively limited systems.
When we try to make inferences "external" to
the system, we are no longer in the realm of
logic. This is a frequent problem, since it is
difficult to notice when we are crossing the
edge, we then start questioning the
intelligence of someone who disagrees with us.
Part 1.
John Winston. johnfw@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Have You Ever Seen A Shaman? Part 2.
April 19, 2008.
This discusses the statement that you can't
disprove a negative.
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Our beliefs are what we consider possible ("what
is"). So "all" that "is" is our world view. This
"defines" and "limits" our personal universe. We
all can conceive a universe beyond what is, but
"only" with our imagination. We perceive what is
possible, with maybe a big or little m-racle or
two thrown in along the way. For some people,
mi-acles happen because of our limited knowledge
(delusion), Television would have seemed a mir-cle
in the 19th century. Others see mira-les as
Divine Intervention. But in both cases they seem
like mira-les because they are beyond our ideas
of what is normal.
The limits of our ideas about "what is" limit
our perception on a very basic level; those
perceptions are "within" the scope of "what is".
We perceive what is real and that realness
allows us to deduce what is. It all goes around
in a circle.
The problem with assuming these "self-evident"
assumptions are THE TRUTH is that, if these
axioms and ideas "Determine" our world view,
our perceptions and observations will "prove"
the underlying TRUTH.
In other words, our axioms determine our
world view; our world view determines our
perceptions. If it looks like an elephant,
walks like an elephant and feels like an
elephant, it must be an elephant!
If someone says, "But, look at the world out
there, it looks real to me!" That person is
starting to think like a shaman!
Shamanism isn't about trying to prove that
rationality is unachievable.
Or about proving that our beliefs determine
and confirm our world, that's unnecessary: the
shaman "acts" as if there "are" "no" proofs".
The problem for someone who has a Rational
view of the world is to prove that what we
experience "isn't" a result of our beliefs,
No "self-evident" truths allowed! You can't
prove or disprove an assumption with another
assumption. Inductive logic doesn't help here
either, since we are talking about the basis
for perception itself. If you can't "disprove"
this, you can't "logically" say the world is
such and such, Or even say the world "out
there" is out there.
If you decide to ignore this challenge and
still masquerade as a Rational Man, that's
okay with me, if you are not ashamed of
convincing yourself with voodoo.
But, "You can't prove a negative." Who
knows where this college freshman, "law of
logic" folklore originated. Certainly not
from the logisticians. The "Law" is probably
a confusion of the saying that you can't
Inductively prove something doesn't exist
because you can't prove you know everything
about everything ("negative existential
judgements").
If you can't prove a negative, then the
negative logical statement "You can't prove
a negative." is unprovable. So it's an
illogical thing to say.
(Actually, every negative statement entails
a positive, so there are no purely negative
logical statements.) Anyway, I am not asking
anyone to "prove a negative" I am only saying
that no one can call himself a rationalist
without "disproving" that our beliefs determine
our world.
Why should you waste your time answering a
trick question when all you have to do is
look around and see that the world obviously
doesn't work that way? You won't be the first
person who has been able to reconcile
incompatible beliefs; shamans do it all the
time; humans have a talent for it; but a
shaman is aware of doing it.
Until a Rational Man has disproved this,
he can't "honestly" call himself a rational
man. He can't intellectually hold a rational
view of the world. Each `Thinking' person `Must'
ask "Am I being intellectually honest with
myself or am I only blindly following the
Doctrine of some unnamed C-urch of Rational
Thought?" `Anyone' who takes a rational view
of the world without disproving that our beliefs
determine and confirm our world is living in a
dream world.
A shaman says exactly that: the world is a dream.
Everyone has to take his or her axioms on `FAITH'
that's all we have there are no other options even
for people who dislike the word faith.
If our axioms are accepted on faith, there is
no difference between "reasoned" faith and blind
faith: there is only blind faith. If you prefer
to call it reasonable faith, that's okay, but
recognize it for what it is: an emotional
preference. Many people say that blind faith is
the only desirable kind. Others feel the very
nature of man allows us to pick the true
assumptions (the world out there is really
there and we can know it), that may well be,
but that is another assumption.
Although I am using the term "belief" in
its intellectual sense, a shaman often views
reality as if it is the result of our beliefs,
expectations, intention, desire, focus, love
and fear. I am not just presenting the idea
that our beliefs "create our reality". I am
simply implying that it is often effective
to view the world as if it is the result of a
few primary Causes. Practically all non-shamans
focus on a bunch of Effects and call that
"The World".
A shaman is not saying this is the way
things are. He is only saying that some things
are more im****tant than what he believed
yesterday or what he will believe tomorrow.
In describing shaman beliefs I am not saying
the world isn't what you think it is. A
shaman friend of mine says it this way: "The
world is what you think it is." All I am
saying is we may have to admit the
possibility that at some time in our life we may
have accepted some of our ideas without
sufficient proof (actually, I am talking about
`all' of our ideas, of course.) A corollary
might be: give people a break when we disagree
with them they may not be stupid, but just
working with different assumptions. Judgement
is an emotional reaction, not a sign of
superiority.
Of course this way of thinking can lead to
belief in Nothing (nihilism). But the shaman
doesn't travel down that path. The shaman says
that things are actually very real for the
person who believes they are real and that
personal reality is `not in any way inferior' or
less desirable' or `less "real" than some
"Cosmic Truth". Is there such a thing as Cosmic
Truth beyond personal truth? You are free to
decide, based on what you emotionally feel
comfortable with.
If something is real for us, we will think
and experience and act in a way that reflects
that reality. The shaman decides not to play
the game of "What is Really going on?" since
the answer depends on faith. He accepts reality
based on his faith along with his power to
change his mind when he feels like it.
If all this seems too simplistic to be true,
consider that it `is' simple and that the
concept pertains to all "knowledge": no matter
how complex our perceptions of reality and
how those perceptions agree with our other
perceptions, who can say that they are
independent of our beliefs? Who can say what
a perception actually is anyway, independent
of other perceptions? Any definition of the
concept of perception itself is based on a
logical process starting from a set of
assumptions.
If all this violates common sense and goes
against the way you feel things are (faith),
try kicking a box with a hidden brick inside
and say, as Samuel Johnson once said, "I
disprove it thus!"
Lobachevski, Riemann, and other
mathematicians demonstrated alternatives to
Euclidean geometry and mathematically proved
that there is no way to choose between them.
It wasn't just geometry that was affected.
The problem goes beyond the question: Is
Euclidean geometry true? Or is Riemann
geometry true? It asks: If there is no way to
choose, how can we know what is real?
Poincaré gave a shamanistic answer: the
question has no meaning. All of our concepts
are only `convenient' definitions, some more
interesting than others. Einstein, in true
shamanic fa****on, chose Riemann geometry to
describe space… and space complied.
All this won't come as a surprise to many
people: it can all be gleaned from any college
course in Philosophy of Science even though
most scientists think this is a lot of hog
wash (if they have thought about it at all),
they, and most other people, have an `emotional'
attachment to their World View. It gives them
stability and power. Shamans don't take things
so seriously, they are comfortable in a
changing world because they don't rely on it:
they find power from within.
I don't want to give the impression that
shamans are anti-science. Actually I suspect
most shamans have always viewed scientists as
kindred s-irits and look on science as a
fascinating and useful game. A game with
arbitrary fixed methods and rules (from a
shaman's point of view) such as repeatability,
double-blind experiments, `reducio ad absurdum',
etc. If you are playing a game of chess and
decide to make any move you want, you may have
fun, but you are no longer playing chess. The
game of science has its place in the scheme of
things and its Basic rules Have changed over
its history and (hopefully) will continue to
evolve.
Part 2.
John Winston. johnfw@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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