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Shamanic Pathways 10 - A Gaggle/Murder/Cacophony of Shamans.
One of the things that's hard to find in contemporary shamanic practices (especially if you're not a Core shamanist), is a sense of community. Whether that be online, or in person.
Practicing as a shamanist can be a lonely path in general. I mean on the outside looking in, it sounds like a crazy religion. You have a person who talks to spirits and land-wights, who believes in gods and the power of sacred animals, who often works to shepherd dead spirits to their resting places, to heal the soul, to travel to invisible worlds that are more commonly accepted to be fantasy or make-believe, rather than the real places a shaman knows them to be. Being a shamanist often involves not just working with pre-existing spirits and deities, but meeting new ones, and bringing their stories back into the world. It is always about walking a fine line between respecting the past, and being a pioneer at the front of spiritual practice.
And any pioneer, in any walk of life, can be difficult for others to accept.
But I'm not talking about a sense of community outside of shamanism here, I'm talking about a sense of community within shamanism. I have this dream, you see, of being able to sit down with a group of people; either online or off, and discuss the ethics of tricking soul fragments into the body. This example, is just one of the many things I devote a lot of thought to, and wish I had more input on. You see, some of the more ancient shamanic cultures simply tricked, connived or plain trapped soul fragments to force them back into the body. With contemporary psychology - or at least, with my limited understanding of it - being as it is, forcing anything back into the body presents problems. How to reconcile the differences? I'd love to brainstorm with other experienced contemporary shamanists... but... where are they?
I've been a shamanist for about 8-9 years now. I run my website; wildspeak.com, I've been a member of countless forums, both shamanic (including the once excellent, but now very quiet English-speaking Kondor forum) and general pagan. I used to be active in the Western Australian Combined Covens community (where I only ever met one other neo-shamanist, but I'm sure there are others), and I'm not exactly new to the crowd. And I can say that I don't know of any community setting where a group of contemporary non-Core shamanists could talk about the ethical dilemma I raised above. Hey, if you know of any, tell me!
I have people in a one on one setting I can talk to, via email. But no real sense of community with it. Once Google Wave comes out, of course, that will change. Because then email / community will be one and the same, and I'm hoping to see some changes in the way the often-solitary-but-community-driven shaman / shamanist responds to this kind of technology.
The things I'd like to do with groups of contemporary non-Core shamanists is extensive. I'd like to see new or learning shamanists experiment or offer soul retrieval / depossession to other shamans/ists with experience (who require it, by the way, not people who are splitting their soul for 'learning purposes'), so that both can go through the process together, and learn together, and create a bond. I'd like to see ethical discussions about the best soul healing techniques, and like on the old Kondor forum, discussions about the best ways of getting from place to place in the Otherworlds, and the best ways of settling down disgruntled spirits of the dead (which, in the past, has ranged from cupcakes, to tea, to chanting, to talking to them, to bringing touchable, affectionate animal spirits along with you). I'd like a community, or communities that worked to solidify otherworldly UPG, while at the same time; show fearlessness when it comes to bringing new UPG to the table, as is our responsibility as story-tellers and makers.
For now, I'm limited to writing posts like this one, and often resolving these issues by myself. Shamanism is a lonely path, my friends; but it should never be this lonely.
Practicing as a shamanist can be a lonely path in general. I mean on the outside looking in, it sounds like a crazy religion. You have a person who talks to spirits and land-wights, who believes in gods and the power of sacred animals, who often works to shepherd dead spirits to their resting places, to heal the soul, to travel to invisible worlds that are more commonly accepted to be fantasy or make-believe, rather than the real places a shaman knows them to be. Being a shamanist often involves not just working with pre-existing spirits and deities, but meeting new ones, and bringing their stories back into the world. It is always about walking a fine line between respecting the past, and being a pioneer at the front of spiritual practice.
And any pioneer, in any walk of life, can be difficult for others to accept.
But I'm not talking about a sense of community outside of shamanism here, I'm talking about a sense of community within shamanism. I have this dream, you see, of being able to sit down with a group of people; either online or off, and discuss the ethics of tricking soul fragments into the body. This example, is just one of the many things I devote a lot of thought to, and wish I had more input on. You see, some of the more ancient shamanic cultures simply tricked, connived or plain trapped soul fragments to force them back into the body. With contemporary psychology - or at least, with my limited understanding of it - being as it is, forcing anything back into the body presents problems. How to reconcile the differences? I'd love to brainstorm with other experienced contemporary shamanists... but... where are they?
I've been a shamanist for about 8-9 years now. I run my website; wildspeak.com, I've been a member of countless forums, both shamanic (including the once excellent, but now very quiet English-speaking Kondor forum) and general pagan. I used to be active in the Western Australian Combined Covens community (where I only ever met one other neo-shamanist, but I'm sure there are others), and I'm not exactly new to the crowd. And I can say that I don't know of any community setting where a group of contemporary non-Core shamanists could talk about the ethical dilemma I raised above. Hey, if you know of any, tell me!
I have people in a one on one setting I can talk to, via email. But no real sense of community with it. Once Google Wave comes out, of course, that will change. Because then email / community will be one and the same, and I'm hoping to see some changes in the way the often-solitary-but-community-driven shaman / shamanist responds to this kind of technology.
The things I'd like to do with groups of contemporary non-Core shamanists is extensive. I'd like to see new or learning shamanists experiment or offer soul retrieval / depossession to other shamans/ists with experience (who require it, by the way, not people who are splitting their soul for 'learning purposes'), so that both can go through the process together, and learn together, and create a bond. I'd like to see ethical discussions about the best soul healing techniques, and like on the old Kondor forum, discussions about the best ways of getting from place to place in the Otherworlds, and the best ways of settling down disgruntled spirits of the dead (which, in the past, has ranged from cupcakes, to tea, to chanting, to talking to them, to bringing touchable, affectionate animal spirits along with you). I'd like a community, or communities that worked to solidify otherworldly UPG, while at the same time; show fearlessness when it comes to bringing new UPG to the table, as is our responsibility as story-tellers and makers.
For now, I'm limited to writing posts like this one, and often resolving these issues by myself. Shamanism is a lonely path, my friends; but it should never be this lonely.
no subject
Tricking soul fragments seems highly impractical to me, but then I've never messed with anything like a sould retrieval. Closest thing I've come to anything like that is discovering that one can bring back one's old bits by doing things one used to do as a kid (coloring, singing, watching a certain cartoon, playing with legos). This might not be true for everyone. I'd never try doing anything like sould retrieval. I have no business doing that. Anyway, seems to me that a piece that was tricked back into the body will not always intigrate and may leave the first chance it gets.
Fragmenting voluntarily... Well, hey, I don't mind the idea, but then, I'm a libertine when it comes to this sort of thing. Having said that, I really ought not be fragmenting at this point. I should be intigrating.
I enjoy your posts. Neoshamanism will probably be something I end up studying...
no subject
I've joked, sometimes, that doing any form of therapy requires an ability to manipulate people into getting better.
Mental health is really, really complex. Your mind is exceedingly complex. Cognitive dissonance is common: you want two conflicting things at the same time. Someone who self-harms on the one hand doesn't want to stop self-harming, because it works, it alleviates some psychological pain/distress--and on the other hand they want to stop because it's maladaptive and they know it hurts them in the long run. How to quit? It often involves tricking your subconscious, satisfying or misleading that part of you that wants to self-harm until you've developed alternative coping skills to a solid enough level that they're effective.
Figuring out what motivates a person or a part and then using that to get them to behave in healthier ways is part of therapy. Someone wants attention, so they cause a crisis or engage in various negative attention seeking methods that are maladaptive and even dangerous. They're used to that getting them attention, and they don't always even realize that's what they're doing, so they continue the pattern over and over. The therapeutic team's job is to show them that they can get attention in positive ways. Pointing out what they're doing and what would be healthier only gets you so far; the behavioral pattern is ingrained and hard to break just because you consciously know what the problem is.
So behavioral therapy enters into it (you know, Pavlov's dogs and the like?). You give the person lots of attention when they're asking for it appropriately and showing healthier behaviors. You give them absolute minimum attention (only enough to keep them safe, if you're in a residential/in-patient setting) when they're engaging in the negative behaviors. Over time, the negative behaviors decrease and the desired behaviors increase. (Sometimes this happens really rapidly, but usually it takes a controlled setting like residential treatment.)
It's rather analogous to tricking soul fragments, I think. Psychology's like that all the time. Shamanism has a lot in common with psychology; it's dealing with the spiritual and mental health, whereas psychology tends to focus on the mental health only. But the two are strongly linked--mental and spiritual health--so why shouldn't the methods to treat them be similar?
no subject
Yeah, good point; the Indigenous cultures that used them often found great success with them, enough that thousands of years of just 'tricking apparatus' came into existence. And then of course you have the role the Trickster plays in healing, and the mantle that some shamans take on themselves as Trickster; who am I to say that this was a bad method just because it's not mainstream anymore?
There wouldn't be Tricksters out there if they didn't have their place. Tricking soul parts into the body also had (and likely has) its place.
This is the kind of thing I'd love to discuss in a group setting, y'know?
no subject