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kimikiri



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The Shaman Forum 1
#7249354 - 08/01/07 09:28 PM (16 years, 6 months ago) |
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This post is open for debate. I actually want to see some engaging debate over this subject. The topic is what is the "function" of a shaman. I see a lot of posts and a lot of talk about "shamans" on these boards. However I think that everyone has a different idea of what a shaman actually is...
Webster says this:
Main Entry: sha·man Pronunciation: 'shä-m&n, 'shA- also sh&-'män Function: noun Inflected Form(s): plural shamans Etymology: ultimately from Evenki (Tungusic language of Siberia) samAn 1 : a priest or priestess who uses magic for the purpose of curing the sick, divining the hidden, and controlling events 2 : one who resembles a shaman; especially : HIGH PRIEST 3 - sha·man·ic /sh&-'ma-nik, -'mä-/ adjective
Even Wiki gives a discombobulated definition...
Shamanism refers to a range of traditional beliefs and practices concerned with communication with the spirit world. There are many variations in shamanism throughout the world, though there are some beliefs that are shared by all forms of shamanism:
The spirits can play important roles in human lives. The shaman can control and/or cooperate with the spirits for the community's benefit. The spirits can be either good or bad. Shamans get into a trance by singing, dancing, taking entheogens, meditating and drumming. Animals play an important role, acting as omens and message-bearers, as well as representations of animal spirit guides. The shaman's spirit leaves the body and enters into the supernatural world during certain tasks. The shamans can treat illnesses or sickness. Shamans are healers, psychics, gurus and magicians. The most important object is the drum;[citation needed] it symbolizes many things to a shaman. Sometimes drums are decorated with rattles, bells or bones to represent different spirits and animals, depending on the region and the community.
Since when was a drum required?
Anyways...
The purpose of this post is to get everyones ideas on what a shaman actually is in "our" world today.
Because obviously what a shaman is to people in developing countries is not the same as what WE deal with.
I understand that in developing countries a shaman is different than what a shaman would be in a developed country.
It boils down to belief in magic... vs. science.
And please do not get me wrong... the shamans in third world countries are still doing the same services and duties that I would imagine a shaman would do, but in a different environment.
Im not saying their ideals are wrong or that their belief system does not work...
What I am saying is this...
What is a modern day shaman?
Do they even exist...? (By definition no)
Anyways... if I had to define a "modern day shaman" in one word.
It would be GUIDE.
-------------------- Those who would sacrifice their freedoms for securities deserve neither, and will soon lose both. -Benjamin Franklin
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danlennon3
LivingIsEasyWithEyesClosed.....



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Re: The Shaman Forum [Re: kimikiri]
#7249368 - 08/01/07 09:30 PM (16 years, 6 months ago) |
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an american shaman... doesnt sound right!
-------------------- "Psychedelics should be used not to escape reality, but to embrace it"
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DIRTYMAN
Jesusdon'tcomethrough thecotton.

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Re: The Shaman Forum [Re: kimikiri]
#7250338 - 08/02/07 05:46 AM (16 years, 6 months ago) |
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Shamans are nothing more than pretentious hippies who think they'redoing spiritual work while under the influence, they're meaningless in today's societies - and what does a typical Shaman's day consist of, smoking pot and posting about it online?
-------------------- I'm racist. http://k-k-k.com/
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Kinematics
coyote vision


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Re: The Shaman Forum [Re: kimikiri]
#7250408 - 08/02/07 06:27 AM (16 years, 6 months ago) |
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Quote:
kimikiri said: Since when was a drum required?
A drum is used to put the shaman into a trance necessary to do shamanic work. It isn't an elaborate beat, just a steady one at a certain speed with a call back at the end, and an initiation at the beginning. An actual drum isn't required per say, but it is best. I use a drumming CD since I don't have anyone to drum for me and it works just fine. However my practice in shamanism is minimal and I wouldn't consider myself one.
Did you read the thread that was posted in the psychedelic experience? There is some more information I posted in there in regards to shamanism. As far as I know, I am the only one I have seen posting on this forum who has actually practiced shamanism.
I will post more on this later, just want to see what else is brought up in this thread.
Edited by Kinematics (08/02/07 06:28 AM)
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Moo456
Pied_Piper

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Re: The Shaman Forum [Re: Kinematics]
#7250642 - 08/02/07 08:52 AM (16 years, 6 months ago) |
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Sometimes when i trip on ayahuasca i can hear a drum beat. Its more than just hearing it, its like the rythum reflects my motions and thoughts.
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EllisDSox
King Hella!

Registered: 01/22/07
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Re: The Shaman Forum [Re: kimikiri]
#7250706 - 08/02/07 09:18 AM (16 years, 6 months ago) |
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Shaman is just a general term for tribal spiritual leaders. A shaman communicates with spiritual energy forces and assists other people in learning to do so, with or without the assistance of psychedelics.
-------------------- Disclaimer: If you have any kind of heart condition, my posts are not for you. You could literally die from reading the first couple of words in any one of them. Scroll down the page, live your life and prosper, but don't read my posts because your heart will probably explode. I am not joking.
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WhiskeyClone
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Re: The Shaman Forum [Re: DIRTYMAN]
#7250733 - 08/02/07 09:29 AM (16 years, 6 months ago) |
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There were shamans way before there were pretentious hippies.
Nowadays anybody can call himself a shaman.
Hey look, I'm a shaman!
-------------------- Welcome evermore to gods and men is the self-helping man. For him all doors are flung wide: him all tongues greet, all honors crown, all eyes follow with desire. Our love goes out to him and embraces him, because he did not need it. ~ R.W. Emerson, "Self-Reliance"
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Kinematics
coyote vision


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Who on here even claims to be a shaman? I've never seen anyone say anything along those lines.. only people interested in finding out more info.
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mytymyc
Acolyte of light



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Re: The Shaman Forum [Re: kimikiri]
#7251023 - 08/02/07 11:00 AM (16 years, 6 months ago) |
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I have researched shamanism for 20 some odd years now and practice lots of different forms of meditation, purification rites, etc. My interpretation of being a shaman is having the ability to connect with all things physical, spiritual, metaphysical and using those abilities for purposes of a noble nature. At the risk of sounding Rahie-esque, I have experienced astral projection and "traveled" cross country on numerous occasions , all the while laying comfortably in my bed in a trance state. I often talk to animals and indeed, every where I go animals follow and approach me. Just the other day a raccoon came up to me while I was sitting in the grass by my house meditating. He just posted up in front of me about a foot and a half away and just looked at me for about half an hour, cocking his head one way or the other and chattering quietly. From what i was able to understand he was trying to tell me how some punk kids killed his brother by stoning him to death. It was a sad example of peoples disrespect for the sacredness of life.
-------------------- In the land of fruits and Nutts
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Apollyphelion
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Re: The Shaman Forum [Re: kimikiri]
#7251060 - 08/02/07 11:15 AM (16 years, 6 months ago) |
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Shamanism is funny because it is the attitude: "I can't be a Shaman. No one on here is a Shaman" is what's killing it!
A shaman is a job...a cool job, maybe even mysterious job, but I'm sure like any job, sometimes a Shaman might be "going through the motions" and there might be a day where he is sick of his work. "Auugh, fuck the spirits, leave me alone! You have troubles troubling you? Eh, alright, let me get my drum"
Also I feel no one on this website could ever be a Shaman due to the fact we can never agree on one definition. But If I said I was a shaman you'd all scorn me, despite the fact there not being a solid SOLID definition.
In my experience, I have met Shamans of many types, spanning multiple personalities and cultures. In my opinion the role a Shaman fills in society is quite common, although rarley labeled definitively. Shamanism is almost synonymous with subjectivity on these forums. Any one with the know how, gut instinct, or "balls" should fess up and say they are a Shaman. I'd beleive you, but the same way I'd beleive a Cop off duty telling me he was a cop.
Shaman's are special, but I think we make mountain's out of molehills, in how special they are. I think a Shaman falls somewhere in between Dirty_Man's defintion and the most Grandiose definition possible. Would it really be that intimidating to meet a REAL shaman, or someone who is confident to call himself one? No more intimidating than a comedian...
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"I'm looking at you looking at it" SUBSCRIBE TO MY YOUTUBE CHANNEL PLEASE! www.youtube.com/apollyphelion Creator of the World's Worst Comic Book
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Primal Glitch
literally just vibing



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Quote:
Since when was a drum required?
man, percussive sounds go DEEP!
hey look, I'm a shaman too
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make the changa you wish to see in the world gnome sayin'?
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kimikiri



Registered: 04/18/05
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Re: The Shaman Forum [Re: EllisDSox]
#7258156 - 08/04/07 03:10 AM (16 years, 6 months ago) |
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Quote:
EllisDSox said: Shaman is just a general term for tribal spiritual leaders. A shaman communicates with spiritual energy forces and assists other people in learning to do so, with or without the assistance of psychedelics.
Spiritual leader... I like that. But what is a tribe? Especially in todays world.
I do not agree with the posts that decry shamans as chronic drug users who just like to "get high".
As far as the drum goes... I can see how the "beat" unites us all and how powerful it can truly be. But I still do not see it as required.
Lots of good ideas and posts lets keep it going.
-------------------- Those who would sacrifice their freedoms for securities deserve neither, and will soon lose both. -Benjamin Franklin
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DIRTYMAN
Jesusdon'tcomethrough thecotton.

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Re: The Shaman Forum [Re: kimikiri]
#7258504 - 08/04/07 08:49 AM (16 years, 6 months ago) |
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What don't you agree about my statements? Care to be a bit more specific? I'm open to intelligent debate.
-------------------- I'm racist. http://k-k-k.com/
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truffleupagus


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Re: The Shaman Forum [Re: DIRTYMAN]
#7258530 - 08/04/07 09:06 AM (16 years, 6 months ago) |
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Watch the video "Sacha Runa". The man featured in that is no pretentious hippie. At least I don't believe he is.
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sublime40oz
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Re: The Shaman Forum [Re: DIRTYMAN]
#7258549 - 08/04/07 09:19 AM (16 years, 6 months ago) |
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I see a shaman as someone who is able to focus his energy on the obscure, of a certain nature. People today go through the motions of life and are so caught up in money, things, ego's, blah blah blah. how can we notice anything while running around constantly, all the while our main focus being on ourselves. Even those who aren't entirely self-centered share their focus between themselves and a select few around them. I don't have any exact definition of what I believe a shaman to be, however I have seen and experienced some things in my life that I can't begin to comprehend. so what do I do, chalk it up to perceptual confusion or just some crazy ass event I can't understand so I'll just throw it to the back of my mind and move on. Now, this is why most of us, including myself, can't truly understand something such as a shaman.
A person who has the ability to see beyond what is right in front of them through some form of altered conscioussness is what a shaman is. I think we can connect with forces beyond the scope of our normal perceptions in many ways. music, dance, meditation, drugs, and whatever else may work for an individual. I think a shaman is someone who connects with these forces and then attempts to channel them into something, wether that be a cure for an illness or showing/explaining this force to someone else.
now that may seem like nonsense but let's not forget the power of the human mind, we can literally make ourselves sick with stress, or cure a problem we think we have with a placebo. so if someone believes in a shaman, ie 1,000 years ago, or in some third world tribal situatuion then they will have a placebo effect. that covers the curing of an illness.
As for showing someone else something they can't see or feel themselves, I personally have had fluke experiences on drugs that I can in no way channel nor deny that they happened involving some form of telepathy with others in a similiar mindset. I believe with enough concentration or shit maybe just sheer dumb luck once in awhile a shaman may be able to communicate something he/she has picked up on to another person unable to wrap their mind around it on their own.
-------------------- Beyond the gray sky
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nimnimnim
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someone who sees the bigger picture of all the aspects of reality, contacting and journeying the spirit realms in order to help his fellow man who is not able or does not want to do the same.
mostly in persuit of helpful problemsolving knowledge (practical, medical, spiritual, social etc) but also to achieve a proficiency and a level of authority on the spirit plane in relation to animals on the mundane plane (of reality) or purely spirit world dwellers either for the benefit of his fellow man, for his/her learning, (for raising a family on the spiritplane, tell his wife about it and get a marriage crisis as a result xD (true perportedly reccuring story)) or for helping out the side of the spiritworld conflicts of which he identifies himself and his people with (which according to some may affect the lives of his tribemembers in malicious ways).
about being a leader, generally that doesn't seem very true. it seems shamans and priests have mostly been two separate things. shamans do not indoctrinate, mystify and monopolise on what they do and they have always been against that sort of social structures (MUST LISTEN (public talk between TM may his soul have lots of fun with the selfdribbling basketballs and some Metzner guy) and perportedly even the plant teachers have been against such misuse (if you believe in the higher dimensionality of plant intelligence (hey even(?) Stamets does (:)). in some cultures (ie. african) as much as half of the population of a tribe may be shamans... a main point seems to be that shamans are among you, beside you... should never be above you... then it is priesthood and they suck x)
(is there no way to disable youtube url parsing?)
afaik typically there are no criteria on how a shaman is supposed to perform, only generally what he's supposed to do. how he achieves his goals on the spirit world may pertain more to how the spirit world works and how he gets there is by any mind-altering means. hallucinogens (north and south america, europe, eurasia), trance dances (typically africa, appart from iboga-users), rhythmic and harmonic prolongued immersion, and extreme physical stress (old egyptian practices, north american indian trials etc), extreme indian sauna-bathing w/ or w/o mescaline xD, meditative or other AP and lucid dreaming (tibetan (mainstream spiritualists favour hardcore aidless AP and seems like they looked down on the "Bön"-practicioners who may have used plants? cool stories in True Hallucinations), hindu etc), or just by being affected by the suggestive ambience of mystical environments like deep caves as in the case of australian aboriginal shamans? (which seems to come with disorientation, fatigue and starvation though).
that's what I've read.
I read there has been a word-nitpicky debate around the work of David Lewis-Williams where his academic opponents seem agitated by his definition of shamanism but his views really seem most sensible. ie: that anyone can be a shaman, anyone who needs to or would like to should be one. (also his work if I'm not mistaken is mostly in the arena of archaeology and interpretation of ancient art... the book Supernatural by Graham Hancock covers this.)
If there's some criterion on when someone should deserve the title of shaman in traditional shamanistic cultures though I've read that usually it's when you can visit the spirit world, make your way and to wrestle down spirit animals (or from there control animals in physical reality). In other cultures there seem to be similar measures such as sitting on one of the hugh animal figures drawn on the earth in south america and astral projecting yourself to an elevation at which you can identify which animal you're sitting in and the come back and give the correct answer (can't remember if they used ayahuasca or meditation or whatever).
still have to get that book the shaman's body or what was the title... seems cool.
edit: oh and if you were a shaman in the place and period when muscimol was sought from fly mushroom, then peeing in peoples mouths may have been an essential part to what being a shaman meant *5 year old's jokes*.
edit: oh oh and I really like the idea of shamans or entheogen ingesting people in general as serving as the guys who pull human consciousness (100th monkey effect?) towards evolution.
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Edited by nimnimnim (12/25/08 10:56 AM)
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Shroomism
Space Travellin


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Re: The Shaman Forum [Re: kimikiri]
#9492874 - 12/25/08 09:59 AM (15 years, 1 month ago) |
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Shamans are catalysts, and healers.. first and foremost. Using the mastery of energy and fire as mediums for transformation. A modern shaman isn't much different from one 2,000 years ago.
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antiPock
fighting entropy



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Re: The Shaman Forum [Re: Shroomism]
#9493385 - 12/25/08 01:18 PM (15 years, 1 month ago) |
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A shaman is someone who eats datura and amanita, and then goes driving around. At least, this is what I have learned on these forums.
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Rikku
Stranger



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Re: The Shaman Forum [Re: antiPock]
#9493549 - 12/25/08 02:18 PM (15 years, 1 month ago) |
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Personally I would love to meet with a Shaman, I have wanted to for years. This summer I read The Eagle's Quest: A Physicist Finds the Scientific Truth at the Heart of the Shamanic World, by Fred Alan Wolf. He was a college professor, so some of it is like being in class, but over all was good.
I agree with the one word, GUIDE
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Alice: The other side of what? Caterpillar:THE MUSHROOM, OF COURSE!
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nimnimnim
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Re: The Shaman Forum [Re: Rikku] 1
#9493764 - 12/25/08 03:23 PM (15 years, 1 month ago) |
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great single word! sounds very sensible.
I think Terence McKenna once name dropped another definition he had heard from some culture which was that the shaman is someone who has seen the end (outside of here you can experience all time at once, past, present, future(s) etc). someone who lives life like a friend who takes another to see a movie which he but not his friend has already seen. I liked that idiom. ...sort of like, the guy holding the map, knowing what lies ahead, inevitable or not. again, finding the word GUIDE to be suiting as you already said (:
another remarkable point I've heard many advocates make is that shamans do not learn their skills and profession from other shamans. saying there is typically no passing down of knowledge (again, no doctrine). every new shaman learns directly from the plants. the plants are the only teachers. (becomes peculiar when shamans are asked who originally taught them about the plants and they say again it was the plants... (DMT+MAOI... how the heck did they... the harmine?))
perhaps "one who looks outside of [life/reality/the proverbial box] to gain insight useful for guiding the other" is as elaborate as you can get not to overdefine, taking in account how different any one shaman's choice of what to do with his knowledge may be :/
when choosing the outside the box for that definition it seems shamans could be defined as those who put into practice "experiencial philosophy" as opposed to intellectual... but perhaps our canonical western toga-dressed philosopher really wasn't as put in the shade by shamans when it comes to immediacy as one would think. considering the far out accounts of what the greek dudes knew and the more far out explanations of their venues for obtaining their insight.
the guide part really seems essencial as there allegedly are those who do the same program but use their insight for self serving ends and they're usually called sorcerers...
...more in modern popular language, perhaps "one who cheats in the game of reality" x)
I think probably most of the ones drawn to stigmatised knowledge should see themselves as shamans in some sense (even though they never learn to AP or can't get ahold of psychedelics) for making some sort of impact on this rigged game called history :/ be that topic psychedelics, forbidden archaeology, medical practicioners who use psychic gifts (such as seeing auras (read The Holographic Universe if you're skeptical but would be pleasantly suprised)) to better aid their patients or calling on the modern conspiracies as they occur... or simply people who urge others to be skeptical about all truths and to think for them selves.
today perhaps modern, urban shamans should work more as cultural provokers... it's not like you can just grab ahold of even your closest of kin and tell them you have lots of useful knowledge attained from visits to the spirit world :/ ...when I've tried to convince my closest of peers of even the simplest of new convictions such as hemp shouldn't be illegal... the pharmacutical industry doesn't want you healthy, anyone will quickly write you off as crazy and will fight to disregard any authorative discourse you refer to to protect their comfort zone.
I kind of liked Talessian's idea of some music artists ... Terence's comment on what art is for seemed to draw on this aswell...
I guess we're really beggars though... we'll have to choose the means to wake humanity up that seem available. if you can give someone first-hand experience and luck out on them interpreting it in a way that helps them that seems great but I guess the biggest task lies in warming the other 99% up by subtle means :/ the smartguys are shaping peoples views with fiction so I guess that may be where the ball lies.
thinking about that point about shamans as practicioners and advocates of a non-doctrinal, self-experiencial, self-empowering knowledge paradigm again... it seems to me that that is the crux of the matter. (again all old religions forgotten points of searching for truth within, the points made on personal insight, how there was no monotheistic dogma in any of the big three before later times... the wisdom of the Sufi (in effect: shamans!) and the seemingly much ignored messages of the qoran, just like what parts of the christian and jewish tradition didn't survive as it wasn't useful to the clergy to distort for the end of control... fresh, personal and direct knowledge in opposition to the crystalisation of it stressed by dudes like Jiddu Krishnamurti...)
culture needs to learn how to celebrate the persuit of knowledge without turning it into dead currency. perhaps this is what we need to go shaman on today's ass about x)
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Edited by nimnimnim (12/26/08 03:56 PM)
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