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The Opposite of Shamanism
This Breaking Open the Head book alternates between being boring and interesting. The stuff that’s really good and really vibrant are the anecdotes of Pinchbeck’s personal experiences, whether it’s taking mushrooms with the Mazatec, or experiencing an iboga initiation with the Bwiti. When there are characters with motivations, this stuff comes to life. Especially the accounts of himself experiencing a spiritual crisis. They are deep and easy to relate to. But a great portion of the book seems to be devoted to theory and history of psychedelics and shamanism. Which is fine, but I guess I was hoping for more of the first-hand type descriptions of it all. I get really sick of theorizing.
That said, there are a few more quotes that I wanted to preserve for posterity. One comes from page 70, and he’s talking about how shamanism is a universal human cultural trait. But then he says:
Its opposite in archaic traditions are the cults of “spirit possession” still found across Africa. In these traditions, a God or spirit comes down and occupies the body of an entranced participant. In shamanic trances, the shaman holds on to his psychic integrity. He goes out into the spirit realms and returns to his hammock or hut in full consciousness.
It’s an interesting distinction, I think. But there’s a certain air of it that doesn’t ring true for me. I’ve never experienced spirit possession as per the many Latin & Afro-Carribean magical systems. But it seems to me that it’s kind of pointless to say they are the opposite of shamanism. Wouldn’t shamans probably take part in both? Are the people who participate in spirit possession dances and trances really considered shamans? In a lot of cases I’ve heard about, these are just regular people who participate in these rituals. Do shamans participate in them as well? Anybody have any leads on this (Max, I’m looking in your direction)?
Another less “controversial” quote is on the next page:
According to the historian William Irwin Thompson, the shaman is a “transformer who takes in powerful energies, steps them down, and turns them into a weaker alternating current that can be used in all the homes of the ordinary folk.” By mediating between the suprahuman and elemental realms, the shaman allows civilization to take place.
This is interesting to me, because I’ve always thought of shamans as existing sort of on the edge or outside of civilization. But I guess really our shape is defined by our boundaries. Shamans draw and re-draw the boundaries, and thus create a space in which civilization can exist. It’s a small but mind-blowing point for me.
One more short quote. Pinchbeck is quoting somebody named Ginzburg who wrote:
The attempt to attain knowledge of the past is also a journey into the world of the dead.
Crazy. Makes history into a shamanic voyage. You leave the everyday world, and float through a mental/mythic space populated by ancestors and heroic events. You delve into this quasi-spirit world in the hopes of retrieving a particular treasure or a lost soul. But you may also become lost in it yourself, possessed by ideas, and divorced from current every day reality.
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August 25th, 2005 at 3:57 pm
Well… the term “shaman” specifically comes from Siberian folks magico-religious practices so technically if it ain’t SIberian it ain’t shamanism
But in reality the term is used by practitioners nowadays to refer to any system that involves “journeying” - ie., using a drumbeat or rattle to put yourself in an altered state and voyaging to the upper world, middle world or lower world, often with the help of animal spirits.
So I guess it depends on how uptight you want to get with the definitions. According to friends of mine who are professional shamen, the termn is used too broadly now. If a magical system doesn’t involve journeying it shouldn’t be called shamanism they say
And according to that restricted definition (though not as restrictive as siberian only, LOL) the AFro-carribean religions are not practicing shamanism.
That’s because the Afro-carribean folks get into an ecstatic state and bring the gods down into our world instead of getting into an ectstatic state and voyaging forth into the world of the gods.
To put things into perspective, the friend who drew this distinction for me also gravely informed me (no pun intended) that afro-carribean systems which involve graveyard magic, sending dead spirits to do jobs, etc aren’t really “necromancy” because technically any word ending in “mancy” only has to do with telling the future! LOL!
I dunno… on the one hand i can see why devotees of these practices might be concerned to restrict certain terms to narrow technical definitions - as per anthopologists - but at the same time, c’mon, if I saw that voodoo has certain aspects of it that are “necromantic” or “shamanic” anyone with a half-decent eductaion will know what I mean - doing magic with spirits, some of them dead, self-induced trances involved.
To me this is quibbling over trivia.
OTOH their used to be quite vicious debates on alt.religion.gnostic which revolved mostly around this one dud Moggin who was similarly concerned that gnosticism be defined as narrowly as possible - a mystical form of christianity whose content may be defined as the the discovery that god is evil, the world is a prison, the body is a tomb, hard dulaism, etc.
People who were interested in alternate views of Jesus, the serpent, kundalini yoga, feminsim, Chritsian mysticism etc would stumble across the NG and wonder “am I gnostic?”
ANd then this dude would jump down their throats and insist that unless they subscribed to this very narrow worldview which involved the complete rejection of embodiment, the world, deity, etc in favor of this sort of bleak nihilism, then know they were not “gnostic” they were “idiotic”
They guy chased off more potential gnostics that way, I tell ya…
August 25th, 2005 at 4:01 pm
Yeah, I’m less and less interested in hair-splitting, unless I can see hard and fast reasons why making these distinctions helps somebody out.
August 25th, 2005 at 4:10 pm
Yes I think shamns participate in both it just depends on what type of training you have.
I’ve seen possessions, I’ve been possessed so that to me is old hat. You don’t really need to be trained to be possessed, it just happens - the spirit is so strong it squeezes your mind out.
But ususally spirits will only do this under certain conditions, eg, when its dark, there has been a lot of rhythmic trance inducing type drumming, candles lit, rum sprayed, and the spirits have been specifically called. A lot of ATRs say that the spirits will only do this SPECIFICALLY when there is drumming.
But shamanic “journeying” is a different thing, I’ve done that too, but quite frankly not too much because it takes more effort or maybe a different kind of effort - less letting go, more concentration
Journeying is something anyone can learn how to do, its basically just lucid dreamning while you’re awake - harder than it sounds because you are trying to maintain your grip on a very fine thread the whole time, to pursue a certain trajectory without losing focus and getting confused
Now you can do this while your awake if you have an assitant standing by playing the drums or rattle - and a lot of different cultures have some kind of pratcice like this…
or you can just travel in your sleep! When you go to bed, your spirit roams and gets up to all sorts of mischief and to the degree you can control that you are journeying too IMHO, even if the shamanism snobs say otherwise.
Yes, regular people journey, regular people get possessed, both practices really seem to rely heavily on polyrhythmic drummming, one brings the spirits into a human body, the other sends the human spirit out of the body, so to me they really are just two sides of the same coin, two different ways of communicating with spirits, some people do both, it really depends on what the emphasis of the particular culture or magico-religious practice is i think.
To say that spirit possession is the “opposite” of shsmanism is just foolishness IMHO.
August 25th, 2005 at 4:30 pm
Yeah, I think that’s what I was getting at - two sides of the same coin. What is an ATR? I hope you include a little about spirit possession in that interview I gave you.
August 25th, 2005 at 4:42 pm
Tim, Im interested to know when you picked up BOTH only because i recently(few weeks ago) bought it and…being a newer-newcomer(last couple of weeks) to your blog it was odd to see it, right there, all of a sudden…something directly related to the book i just “randomly” picked up and bought.
Beyond discussing the differences between shamanistic practices, why hasn’t the use of mind altering chemicals been mentioned.
If a drumbeat is imperative for some to enter trance in a shamanistic-sense, would the same limitation apply to certain aspects of drug taking?
I don’t think pinchbeck really trys to define what divides shamanistic magic-work and shamanistic magic work with different drugs.
August 25th, 2005 at 4:48 pm
Mm, I got the book in the mail a couple days ago.
I don’t know… he certainly mentions it a lot in his book, but I’m not particularly fascinated by that aspect at the moment. Actually, no I did paste in a quote earlier about the mind and intoxicants.
Anyway, I guess that is a decent question for Rev Max, who is acquainted with people who call themselves shamans - do they use drugs to do their journeying? It sounds like no, based on what you said about drumming, etc.
One of the interesting things Pinchbeck mentions in regards to this comes from Mircea Eliade who claims that psychedelic usage was not only not necessary, but represented a degraded form of shamanism.
August 25th, 2005 at 5:03 pm
I was thinking about this over lunch and I realized I should probably take this back - it never gets “old hat” it’s always fucking unnerving, at least for me.
One more point I should add is that in cases of genuine possession (sometimes people fake it for attention or desire for legitimacy) the person has absolutely no memory of what happened. SO, if you are trying to get information then there need to be other people around to tell you what the spirit said and did.
In situations I have been in there are people who - that is their role. They babysite possessees to make sure they don’t injure themsleves, knock shit over whatever.
Also sometimes the possession is unwanted and disruptive - its too early or a spirit who does not fit in with the particular cermeny. SO then they have to be thretened or bribed into leaving again.
It really is some pretty weird and unsettling stuff.
In that sense I guess journeying is the opposite of posession because the person doing the journeying really has to stay in control and remember everything - they can’t afford to just “let go” or the trip will have been for nothing. Gathering info is no good if you can’t remember it!
No they just use drumming.
These same folks are friends of mine and once a year or so we do all do mushrooms, that is an experience in itself, more like a ride.
You can direct it, you can interact with disincarnate entities do healings etc and get good information from the other world but its different from journeying or possession… its kind of like you don’t change or go anywhere, the spirits don’t change or go anywhere, instead what happens is that the world itself changes around you - the veil drops - and then everyone gets to get together and palaver on more or less equal ground somewhere in the middle.
I guess you could journey on mushrooms but it would take an awful lot of self-discipline - certainly more than I have. Mayeb the mushroom spirit itself effects a minor possession? And tehn again tehy are called “trips,” aren’t they?
August 25th, 2005 at 5:07 pm
Journeying is something you can train yourself to do, all you need is a certain rhythym and some practice, at least in the circles I move in drugs are frowned upon becaus ethey cause you to lose focus and self-discipline.
Same with ritualistic possession - no alchohol, no pot, afterwards to unwind is fine but for the cermenoies you have to be awake aware and in control.
Part of the thinking I guess is that alcohol weakens your aura making it more easy for things to penetrate into your space, so if your gonna have things coming and going then you only want good strong spirits who are known to you to be doing this for a purpose, not weak, dirty opportunistic psychic scavengers who might be making mischief or trying to take advantage and cause problems.
August 25th, 2005 at 5:41 pm
Interesting, so Eliade wasn’t just being a baby about drug use. There’s so much noise from these “psychedelic shamans” that it’s hard to separate out what they are saying from what traditionally went down. obviously though, there must be certain traditions of shamanism that do use drugs, or else we’d more than likely never have encountered them.
August 25th, 2005 at 6:10 pm
Most definitely, like ayahusca, ibogaine, etc.
The interesting thing about these substances is that they aren’t fun per se - the trips are long and grueling - intense and exhausting but not necessarily enjoyable
Also, traditonal pratitioners would say that it depends on set and setting (andrew weil makes this distinction also). What your expectations are, what the substance is, is it natural or synthetic, why are you taking it, eg at a rave on teh onbe hand or as part of an indigenous cernmony on the other, etc.
Like if you are taking a substance in a ritual context you don’t se e iit as a party drug you see it as a plant teacher. And so you address and treat it as one, you treat the event like a ritual, you play the drums, pray, sing songs, do things to honor that spirit and specificlaly ask for its assistance and go into the “trip” with certain goals in mind.
WHen you take that approach the plant itself will speak to you and guide you. No shit.
That’s completely different from recreational usage for obvious reasons. If you’re already drunk and you decide to take some mushrooms on teh way into a nightclub then you might have a fun time but its kind of debatable what you would get out of it/
SOme people even say that certain drugs will withold their effects and teachings from people who approach them disrespectfully, try to mix them or party on them, etc.
Like the drug itself is a vehicle for plant spirts to interact with humans, they are choosy about who they want to interact with as well sometimes.
The native americans used tabacco in a ritual context, the spirit that live sin that plant is very powerful and wise ans well. But is yer averge smoker necessaily going to get in t ouch with this spirit and learn what it has to teach? EVen sucking down 30+ cigarettes a day I would say no. Set and setting. WIthout the ritual contex the drug means nothing.
August 25th, 2005 at 6:10 pm
ATR is AFrican Traditional Religion.
August 25th, 2005 at 8:27 pm
I just watched a show on the National Georgraphic Channel called “Taboo: Initiation”. They focused on rituals, specifically Korean shamans. Rev Max mentions that “shaman” is a Siberian term. So is NGC incorrect?
While I myself am not a shaman, I used to play bass in a live rap band. Rap music relies on repetitive, monotonous rhythms and rapping. Whether it is utilizing drum machine patterns or the beats of a live drummer, it is definitely trance-inducing.
One day, during one particularly intense rehearsal, it dawned upon me that the rapping could be a modern equivalent of chanting and incanting. It was as if we were casting spells, and the energy of the “trances” (rehearsals, really) depended on the content of the lyrics. If a rapper was in a bad or angry mood, and if his freestyles were negative and violent, the energy reciprocated in kind.
I think our use of drugs and alcohol helped open up that dimension to us. We were just trying to party and get high, we never approached it as a ritual, but after a while we all began to notice the physical and mental toll that our jamming was taking upon us. If we had started to practice with a methodology in mind, maybe we could have discovered something beyond ourselves. But at the time, we were young and wanted to be famous.
Tragedy befell one of the rappers and he ended up leaving Los Angeles to be with his family. He was the one whose raps were the most verbose, and also the angriest. I wondered if he accidentally “cast” a spell with his negative imagery. To this day, I wonder if we could have driven ourselves into a state with our music. We rehearsed constantly, and the repetitiveness definitely had an effect.
Later on, two of our roomies had mental breakdowns, and we stopped playing in the band shortly afterwards.
August 25th, 2005 at 9:59 pm
Does it matter? Both are functional technologies. The drum is an ally, the mushroom is an ally. Whatever gets you there, right? As far as drugs causing one to “lose focus”, I think there are a lot of very good arguments for losing focus, especially within the shamanic tradition. How can you journey and stay focused? I thought the point was to, you know, journey.
August 26th, 2005 at 2:22 am
I was just sort of using that as an example of how uptight you can get with this stuff if you want to. I’m still kind of digesting a conversatioon had recently w. a riend of mine who has develped this annoying habit of starting every sentence ith “Well, technically…”
Persoanlly I use “shamanism” to refer to any non-western system of ritualistic magic that deals with nature spirits and ancestors and features drumming as a trance-inducing technique. That seems to cover all the bases as far as I can tell/.
August 26th, 2005 at 2:26 am
It kind of depends on the tradition. The folks I know who journey are on the clock when they’re doing it - they journey for their clients. They charge money, like $125 an hour to helo people resolve deep seated shit they can’t fix any other way. So, they need to be in a state of full awreness and concentration when the do it. ALso, not every spirit is fun and friendly -s ome are dangerous and nasty. SO its better to be sober.
At least that’s how it was explained to me.
Now I take mushrooms once in a while and it really is a journey, yes. ANd I can get thigs done in that state and learn a lot too. But since its only my own ass on the line in that situation it seems fine - i’m not responsible for anyone else at that time.
August 26th, 2005 at 1:35 pm
I’m sorry I know you guys are serious, but I just found this hysterically funny. Something about shamanistic journeying whilst on the clock and being paid $125 per hour just strikes me as being a “cosmic joke.” You were kidding, please tell me you are kidding.
August 26th, 2005 at 4:27 pm
Well, for example, I suppose I want a psychologist to help me figure out some deep childhood trauma or something.
Now the psychologist has probably had 6 + years of school, it’s specialized field, he has bills to pay too… so do I expect him to bring his expertise to the table and help me for free?
Now maybe if I was a close personal friend he would do that, but more likely then not we don’t really know each other very well, so the expectation would be that I will be paying for services rendered. I could throw a fit and insits that he take me on as a client for free, but that might or might not work - it wouldn’t work with many carpenters, web designers, hairdressers or chefs either, actually.
OK, so now I’m paying the guy. I want him to do the best job he can, to really have his wits about him, to bring all of his skills and awareness to the table.
So, how would I feel about it if I showed up for an appointment and the guy was drunk, or had just dropped acid?
It might be fun for him, and might even be intereting to watch but… I might also wonder “what am I paying this guy for? He can barely even hold it together himself right now - he’s so fucked up - better find someone responsible and professional.”
So I guess it depends how you see things.
-Do you pay professionals for thier services?
- do you expect them to be sober when they do a job for you?
- do you believe that intangible services (e.g., hypnotherapists, psychologists, etc in mainstream society or witchdoctors, shamen in indigenous society) have any value?
This last question really has to do with 1. whether or not you think that the subconscious has any intrinsic value or mystery of its own that can be tinkered with or unleashed to solve problems, and 2. whether or not you see any benefit to getting help from someone else with years of experience and specialized training to try to tackle something particularly complicated.
Even in indigenous societies shamen are paid - in goats, corn whatever - so I see no reason why they shouldn’t be paid in ths one as well.
If you’re good you can charge a lot, if you suck, you either starve or find another way to get along. Pretty simple.
August 26th, 2005 at 7:14 pm
sorry dude but goats and corn aren’t $125 an hour , and if I’m not mistaken these indigenous shamans also didn’t receive compensation unless his patient was cured of his affliction.
Sorry, no the question really is am I so spiritually bereft as to allow some white guy to drum and journey for me whilst clock watching and charging me $125 per hour. It has absolutely nothing to do with my values of how the subconscious can be tinkered with and unleashed to solve problems, that is merely your supposition.
If he were really good I might even throw in a chicken with that goat.
I’m sorry if my ensuing hilarity has upset you, that was really rude of me, I can’t help but picturing Bob Newhart or Frasier journeying and drum banging in a 3 piece suit in some suburban strip mall. I apologise for my insensitivity. bwahahahahah please make these images go away!!!!! *grin*
August 26th, 2005 at 7:41 pm
Gina, I appreciate where your going with this. But what about his initial question of do you believe it’s acceptable to pay a psychiatrist or psychologist to help you work on interior states?
If you don’t believe it’s acceptable for a psychologist to do it, why? Is it because a person shouldn’t ask somebody else for help on something that’s inside of them? If that’s the case, then is it acceptable to ask friends for advice? Or is it because you believe a person shouldn’t charge money to help somebody on intangible interior states? Why shouldn’t they charge money? Is it because these states are intangible and thus not something which we can actually measure? What else can’t we measure that we regularly charge money for? An education seems like a good example. Do you believe it’s wrong to pay somebody for an education?
PS. I’m not trying to be a bitch here. I’m trying to work out the question for myself. Originally, when Max started talking a few months ago about how intricately money was connected to some of these traditions, it really pissed me off as well. Those questions above are directed to my state of mind during that time. Maybe they’ll be of use to you, maybe not.
August 27th, 2005 at 1:10 am
1. Yes you are mistaken.
2. $125 is cheap for a goat.
August 27th, 2005 at 4:44 am
I don’t know you Gina or what your tradition is so I will explain just a little bit about what I am familiar with and know about. Here’s typical example. This isn’t journeying its actually the opposite of journeying as explained above so that’s quite apropos.
About a week ago, my wife’s friend’s cousin’s 4 year old daughter (yes, that is actually the relationship) was trying to climb the dresser in her room and it overturned on her and pinned her. She was deprived of oxygen for some time.
Her mother heard the noise and tried to get into the room but the dresser was blocking the door. FInally she forced her way into the room and got her kid to a hospital. Turned out that she was in a coma, prognosis uncertain.
My wife’s friend called us to see if there was anything I could do. I told her to send me $21. Then I went out, got the supplies I needed, and did a ritual and prayed for the little girl that night. I paid the spirits $21 out of my own pocket and I had an odd whim almost like a mental image of the girl (I’d never met her or anyone in her family ) anyway in my mind’s eye she had curly red hair which I later confirmed.
So the next afternoon I got a call at work from my wife and apparently the little girl was awake and had smiled at her mom and another relative who entered her hotel room. I heard again on Wednesday that she was even further along in her recovery and how now it looked like she was probably going to be completely OK. And then today when I came home from work I got a letter in the mail from my wife’s friend, a thank you note with $21 enclosed.
I was actually quite shocked since this lady almost never follows up on anything - she can’t even be bothered to get off the couch to look for a job. But I guess this must have been important to her. Anyway I gave the $21 to my spirits and thanked them again.
So is $21 too much to snap someone out of a coma? Believe it or not that has worked for me twice now - almost overnight both times. I personally know people who charge hundreds or even thousands for those kinda services - some of those rituals can have a lot of expensive “ingredients” and be very time consuming. But if the person knows what they’re doing then you get what you pay for.
Anyway the point is that sometimes you have to pay for something if its important enough to you. Everyone’s gotta eat, even spirits don’t work for free. And if you don’t want to pay for those kinds of services then maybe that’s not the solution for you. Maybe you are not meant to solve your problems that way.
I can guarantee you that if someone has a serious enough problem then a couple of hundred bucks or even a couple of thousand to solve it will still seem like a bargain.
August 27th, 2005 at 10:53 am
Tim, I am taking your reproof under consideration,with the exception of the 700 Club or some TV evangelists and tithing, have you ever been asked to pay up front for someone to pray for you?When you are ill and a friend offers a prayer up, do they bill you for that prayer? Perhaps this is a hang up from my Catholic upbringing, I was never comfortable with asking a priest to intervene in my behalf.
What you pay a psychiatrist for is to help you work these problems out for yourself. He doesnt buy some herbs and shake a rattle and tell you I’ve intervened on your behalf, go on home now, you’re cured. The patient does the inner work. The psychiatrist expedites.
Tim: you needn’t pay for an education , you, yourself and many on this board are living proof that autodidacts are some of the most efficient learners in the world. What you do pay for is a certificate, that lets other people know you have participated in a program of learning outlined by a recognised organisation.
BTW goats can be bought here for $75 or less.I live on a farm and there is a dairy around that corner that sells low yielding nannies for $50 and newborn goats for $25.
You seem to believe your intervention with spirits is what brought this little girl back from the edge of death, negating a higher involvement or plan for this girl, and the love and healing energies provided by the most important people in this child’s life, her mother and direct family. Isn’t that a bit egotistical? Do you or the spirits you work with equate the $21 with will or intent?
So the answer to working out problems of the human condition is to contact your local shaman, ask him to intervene and use the money you give him as pay for the spirits doing his bidding in your behalf? What of that person’s spiritual journey, or transpersonal growth, what of his karma? Do shamans not believe in karma?
Max I am not attacking your personal beliefs, this is your path, Godspeed, just as you don’t need to embrace my tantric buddhist approach and I want to thank you for sticking with the conversation, this is giving me the opportunity to investigate my own personal issues with money and using another human as an intercessor with the divine. Just don’t tell me the bill is in the mail
.
August 27th, 2005 at 1:10 pm
Well, if we’re going to talk about intercessors, we’re going to HAVE to bring in Jesus. You said you were raised Catholic, correct? What’s your relationship to Christianity now? For myself, I’ve always had a hard time with the whole “surrender to Jesus/God” thing because frankly, I feel like I ought to be able to do it myself. Whatever “it” is, who knows?
Anyway, like I said, I have/had issues with all this money and intercession stuff as well. Which is why I enjoy hearing Max talk about it, and whatnot. I’m still not really sure where I stand with all of it. I know, for me, I was raised not having a lot of money. My parents were on foodstamps when I was really little. We would get donations of clothes and even toys at Christmas a couple times when I was very small. So I know that’s part of the root of my issues surrounding money and spirituality. Also my parents both work for the Catholic Church, and have their whole adult lives. And they still give money to the collection every week. Which always drove me crazy. Like when is enough enough? Anyway, all that stuff combined has given me sort of a sour view of money in religion. But I realized that it also gave me a sort of sour view of money in general. Like there’s something wrong with having it and using it in certain ways. It’s a hangup I’ve been trying to get over.
Anyway, here are a few other points that might be interesting to talk about:
1. What does a spirit need with money?
2. Gina asked if the money is equated with will or intent. When you pay for something at the store, is that what they equate it with? No, money’s money. But again, what does a spirit care?
3. The question of shamans and karma is an interesting one. I have this idea for a sort of sci-fi story where there’s this syndicate of shamans that you can go to help you solve your spiritual problems. The only thing is that when they take on your problem, they also take on the spiritual rewards that solving that problem entails. So by farming out your problems to them, you may be alleviated of them, but you never grow. Meanwhile, they do. I don’t know how accurate this really is to what happens in shamanism, but it’s kind of a cool idea from a fictional perspective.
4. Doesn’t tantric buddhism have roots in a shamanic/witchcraft tradition? I’d have to look for the reference, but I’ve read accounts of tantrikas in India practicing extremely similar things to what Max is describing here.
5. Also, someone very close to me does indeed have a very serious illness. They regularly see holistic practitioners, who do energy work on them in exchange for money. If you’ve ever attempted energy work like this yourself, which I have, it is very grueling. There is a tendency in the healer to take on the problems of the person being healed. The first time I did it in a serious way, I had an intense dream that night that all my hair had gone gray. Max one time talked about how exchanging money for such services acts as a way of sort of deflecting this transfer. He’d have to explain it again, but I understand it as something like the money becomes charged with the responsibility for the problem, rather than the healer. Then the healer can take the money and spend it, dispersing the energy of responsibility for that problem, deflecting it from hitting them, but also still being able to help the person. Does that mean I should charge this person money for it? No, and I wouldn’t accept it. But after I had that dream, she wouldn’t let me do work like that on her again.
August 27th, 2005 at 2:44 pm
This is my major problem with Christianity on a whole is the need for an intercessor. OK and I realise not everyone advances spiritually at the same rate, but handing all your problems over to an intercessor does nothing, you don’t integrate the lessons that are constantly being laid out in front of you. At least in the Buddhist tradition you have a teacher/guide someone who helps you with your practice.
Tim. you might be thinking of Hindu Tantra, rather than Buddhist or Vajrayana, if you are asking is it an esoteric study, then the answer is yes. I’m afraid the difference is long and complex and would be better served by an email.
August 27th, 2005 at 2:59 pm
Well, if you want to email me about it, feel free. I’m always open to hearing about stuff like that. But don’t feel like you have to, cause I’ve got plenty of other stuff on my plate right now as it is. So either way is fine.
August 27th, 2005 at 4:52 pm
I just happened across this, which seems to relate to what Gina’s arguing here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magical_thinking
August 27th, 2005 at 6:49 pm
No, I KNOW my intervention with the spirits turned the situation around. If you do something enough times and it always works the same way then you stop doubting it.
And no it doesn’t “negate” the love care and attention of her family, just like seeing a doctor doesn’t “negate” those things either - its more like a booster rocket to turn the situation around fast. If they weren’t worried and in a hurry then they wouldn’t have contacted me. If they were content to just cross their fingers and pay $800 a day to keep their kid in the ECR unit and hope things turned out OK they would have done that instead.
You accuse me of being egostistical. I am just a middleman, I don’t actually do any of the heavy lifting myself, I just direct traffic. THat said I’m a damn good traffic director and see no reason not to be proud of what I do. I could adopt a self-abnegating pose of false humility but I’m not exactly sure what the point would be.
A heavy adult male goat cost $140 where I live BTW.
Where did I suggest that’s the best way for everyone to solve their problems? A Jehovah’s Witness who tried to solve their problems that way would probably feel so guilty about that even if their problem got solved it would destroy them psychologically - they couldn’t live with the idea of working with certain types of spirits that from their POV are demons.
So you ask about a person’s spirituial journey. Of course this will sound idiotic to you but I actually believe that the spirits themselves draw people into their orbit if that is the person’s destiny or karma, to work with nature spirits, to commune with the dead. I am aware that there is a lot of racism against indigenous belief systems and people think “Oh, stupid immigrants and their primitive tribal beliefs.” Maybe you feel that way too. FIne. Then it is not part of your karma to get involved in this stuff.
Now that I think about it the only people who really seem to object to this stuff are economically privilleged white people! They would rather run out and spend 20 times as much money on a divorce lawyer, or a child psychologist, or a sex therapist, or whatever. And then they come back months later when the original problem is now 5 times worse and want help! It never fails.
OTOH people who have the attitude of knowing everything and being arrogant and rude and ungrateul aren’t disrespecting me, they’re disrespecting the spirits. So often enough the spirits will flat out refuse to help someone like that no matter how much money they offer! When that happens there’s nothing I can do about it.
Why do Chinese people offer hell-notes to their ancestors? Money is love and BTUs. God only knows what they spend it one. I think they just like to keep it in circulation. Or maybe they know that it is so hard for us to part with that it takes on the value of a sacrifice for them - energy and attention.
When the spirits help someone they will always take their payment somehow, in ways that we as humans cannot control or predict, anymore then you can put a hungry dog in a room with a bowl of food and insist that it not eat. Money is just one way to pay, lifeforce is another. From my POV money is safer and more predictable.
The more you do jobs for people the better you get at it as you learn the ropes but it is not up to you to decide what jobs you want to do it is up to the spirits. Whatever the person wants to get done be that good or evil it is between them and God, the shaman is just a middle man. It does take a lot of blood sweat and tears to becomne a good middle man so there is a reward from that too - it very fascinating and satisying and enlightening and can be very lucrative as well. But there is a real danger, as soon as the shaman starts thinking that they are the ones who are so great they get in trouble. The spirits are flexible, if their vehicle becomes arrogant and self-consumed and greedy then they can always abandon him or her and find another sales rep.
In Tibet at least Buddhism (a foreign universalist theology and ethical system) was fused with indigenous bon-po shamanism. Cerain Bon-Po practices are very very similar to things that I do as well actually but I am not going to talk about them here.
You paid with your lifeforce. There might be another way to shunt the energy off somehow but you would have to research it.
Speaking of tantric Buddhism I have a friend who is a tantric buddhist, she is also a sex worker and convinced she is doing a real service to the world by helping men reconnect with their inner energy, yadda yadda yadda. She charges $150 an hour too, and she should, she’s good at what she does and a beautiful compassionate lady.
Now, she was sex worker before she got on the spiritual tip too. And she used to have sex with 10 guys a day and absorb all of their anger and fear and problems and at the end of the day she was so covered with negative energy she was just trembling! And she had to shake it off somehow. So now she approaches the whole thing a lot differently, she picks and chooses who she works with a lot more carefully, charges more, puts more care and attention in to each client, prays over it, etc. She claims that its the difference between night and day, the two approaches. Makes sense to me.
In the big picture we’re all prostitutes, aren’t we? We all gotta eat. So might as well do it ethically if you can, either that or keep your talents under wraps and hide your light and don’t help people. There might be a lesson to learn from that too.