Subject: Have You Ever Seen A Shaman? Part 3.
April 19, 2008.
This talks about how new ideas are brouht forth.
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Since we have chosen to play the scientific game,
most of the time we have to sail in safe waters in
order to return to our familiar ****t.
Psychiatrists used to lock up people who
ventured into unknown waters and lost their way
back, now they give them d-ugs to deaden their
awareness (put their brain chemicals back in
"balance" and allow them to "cope").
Most of us seem to have a fear of sailing into
the uncharted sea of irrationality. Author Robert M.
Pirsig called it flat earth reasoning, "If you
sail too far, you'll fall off the edge!", it's
scary stuff.
Logic can be one of our most valuable tools. If
you are playing a game, it is often useful to
follow the rules. It's not hard to find people who
expound theories that are inconsistent or
incomplete `within the axiomatic system they are
using'. There is no law that says you can't use
your head. To scientists, logic is crucial to the
game. They don't have much sympathy for those
who don't use their heads. Some scientists see
p-eudo-scientific theories as a dire threat to
the well being of an ignorant misguided public
that needs to be protected from Nonsense before
damage is done. The damage sometimes happens,
but the scientist's emotional response is
weakened by his lack of understanding of the
basic assumptions behind his "facts". The shaman
is trained to play with assumptions and can't
help looking for assumptions behind a logical (or
illogical) statement.
One tenet of the scientific method that
scientists sometimes try to follow is to not
decide on an answer before you start suspecting
an answer is different than expecting an
answer. This isn't practical for a shaman since
he pretends that beliefs precede perception.
Science takes a conservative approach to
phenomena. Something is suspect until the
mechanism for its existence is known. This
helps eliminate "false" data and places the
burden of proof on the observer. It also
tends to eliminate innovative ideas.
I won't insult your intelligence by
pointing out the obvious logical flaws in
such pop-science homilies as "Occam's Razor",
"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary
evidence", etc. (as they are usually applied).
You can find many discussions exposing the
fallacies of these ps-udo-scientific methods
if you care to look.
A shaman doesn't take these recreational
scientific games seriously: explanations are
only models, shamans are interested more in
the value something has.
How fast a belief becomes generally accepted
depends on the generally accepted authority of
the people who already hold the new belief. The
acceptance usually starts within the scope of
a specialized field and spreads out from there.
If an unusual phenomenon is observed by more
and more people, belief in it may increase
until the normal world view includes the
phenomenon. (JW An example of this is the fact
that people now believe that this world is round.
In the past people just knew that the world was
flat. A lot of people were put to d-ath for
trying to bring out that point. Another example
is that people used to say that the Sun comes
up in the morning, when in actuality the Sun
doesn't come up, it stays relatively still and
the Earth rotates so it looks like the Sun
comes up. The last example that most of you will
not believe is that the Sun has planets inside
of it. These planets affect the Sun spot activity
during the 11 year cycles that come about. These
planets have people on them. At least two to
these people came to Earth in the past and were
instrumental in establi****ng the Japanese ra-e of
people. We'll just have to wait around and see
if those facts are ever accepted as being true.)
Many years ago people just knew it was Science
can then stop rejecting the unusual observation
and start explaining it in ordinary ways.
"Obviously, the world was that way all along."
History is a handy tool for confirming our
beliefs.
A shaman realizes these ideas about the way
the world works are only arbitrary points of
view. A self-proclaimed Rational Man has no
difficulty devising other explanations. We
choose different viewpoints based on emotions
("It feels right") or faith ("It IS") Unless,
of course, you are the first Rational Man in
history who has honesty answered my challenge
and has disproved the shaman's whimsical
point of view that what we experience is a
result of our beliefs.
A shaman is the ultimate practical person
since he has no emotional attachment to his
ideas: a shaman will use any method that
produces the desired result. It's the results
that count, not some S-cred Method. But note,
one of the many meanings of the Hawaiian word
"pono" is harmony. It implies that the means
determine the end (not - the end justifies the
means!): if you want a peaceful loving outcome,
use peaceful loving means.
What the shaman thousands of years ago did
with this understanding of belief systems was
subtle and surprising: if our belief system is
unprovable, can we change our core beliefs
and Construct another world view?
Once the shaman gets over the psychological
block that "this is somehow cheating", the
shaman finds it is possible to change one's
world view. The first shaman probably went no
further than this; changed to another world
view and stayed in that other world.
Some time in the e-olution of shamanism
someone observed that different world views
have different advantages, some belief systems
are more effective under some conditions than
other systems.' This shaman may have asked
something like, "Would it be 'cheating' if
I were to change world views based on how
effectively they accomplish what I want to
do?"
This person was the first true shaman'
Don't get the idea that a shaman is
"pretending", although this can be a good
way to start in a desired direction.
Pretending is a power of the intellect to
get results, the shaman must `Know' in the
present moment that the world is really "this
way".
To the shaman this isn't just an intellectual
exercise if our beliefs determine our perception
of the world, then those perceptions obviously
are' what is "out there". The concrete
unchanging world changes in step with the
accepted thoughts of the people who make up
that world.
Surprising new discoveries don't reveal
previously hidden facts about the world, they
reveal a ****ft in beliefs. If the concrete
unchanging world, as we KNOW it to be, proves
our world view, who can tell the difference
between a view of the world and the real world
"out there"?
We build a Model or we accept someone else's
model and make it part of ourselves. We don't
recognize the model for what it is, just a model.
We confuse it with "reality". The model acquires
a life of its own and we build logical
skyscrapers on a mound of "facts". Sometimes
the results can be tragic: the Inquisition
had the glorious goal of saving a person's
Immortal S-ul at the expense of that person's
unim****tant mortal body.
Sometimes the result only affects ourselves.
Sometimes we accept the teachings of people who
sound Wise when they talk or write about their
own logical skyscrapers. The teaching, whether
tem****al or sp-ritual, may have its own share
of wisdom, but it's only a model.
To a shaman, reality is what we make it to
be. A shaman will accept a particular reality
at some particular moment, but a part of
himself will retain the view that it is only
a model. He is then able to view that reality
from a more universal point of view. A shaman
looks at things in a relativistic way. This
can widen his viewpoint and allow him to
discover assumptions hidden from a person who
looks at his beliefs in an absolute way. This
viewpoint has the advantage of helping the
shaman perceive the value and limitation of
that model. It allows him to substitute aspects
of other models into his current model without
shame.
Jainism has a technique that someone
described as "peeling away the layers of an
onion": ask "Who am I?"; answer, "I am ";
then "I am not that!"; ask again; ever
getting closer to the core. Try looking for
the assumptions behind one of your beliefs;
reduce the assumptions to a few core beliefs;
then look at your surface belief with new
understanding.
You may be surprised.
Things that start with "The" are not
shamanistic ways of thinking.
Sometimes these things are described as
"The Law of "... Thermodynamics, K-rma, etc.
The law is logical and useful or people
wouldn't bother with it. But to a shaman it
is limiting. It involves placing power outside
of yourself and makes you more helpless: "It
is The Law and since that is the way things
are', we have to work with it."
"But something either exists or doesn't
exist, right? There are no other options."
If this seems reasonable, perhaps you need to
become more aware of your world view. Not all
questions can be answered yes or no. An
indeterminate question can have a value of
its own.
A shaman tries to become more effective by
increasing his ability to use inner power. To
a shaman, the source of inner power is
infinite and abundantly available to everyone.
We don't need to increase or "build up"
something that is infinite, we need to discover
our freedom to consciously use it. Power is
the ability to accomplish something. In
physics, it is the rate of doing work. For a
shaman, it is an `Effect' of confidence and
authority. The Hawaiian word for this is
"mana", a word that is often confused with
"energy". A better, common meaning of "mana"
is "d-vine power", not in the J-deo-C-ristian
sense, but in the sense that everything is
di-ine. It's only a definition and all
definitions are only attempts to avoid
confusion.
Part 3.
John Winston. johnfw@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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