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Blog
entries beginning with #101 are not essays but minimally-edited notes and
reviews from the files I've collected over the last few decades. I no longer
have the time and energy needed to sort out and put together into decent
essay-form the many varied ideas in these files, but I would like to share them
with all who are interested.
If
you have questions and think I might help, you're welcome to send me a
note: sam@macspeno.com
===
Post #145 is notes on books and essays on shamanism and shamanic
ritual, which I see as models for putting into practice the perspectives of the
New Cosmology.
===
1. Aboriginal
Men of High Degree
by
Adolphus Peter Elkin (1891-1979). St. Martin's Press (1977)
This book
is a second, 1978, edition of what first appeared in 1945; it was prior to
Eliade’s famous study of shamanism (and apparently helped stimulate Eliade’s
work). It describes variations on a theme, as found in different parts of
Australia, especially of how shamans are ‘made’ and also of some of the things
they are capable of.
It offers
three things of interest: 1) The author makes some good comparisons with
Tibetan shamanism. 2) Some specifics are mentioned about the tribal group from
the Port Jackson area (which is Sydney). 3) A
repeated claim is that the Australian shamans could climb up to the sky (for
spirit conferences) via a rope which emanates from their bodies; the
introduction specifically says “from their testicles”(!).
Of
personal interest is the cleaning out of the insides of the body (which I
experienced during a vision many years ago) and the mention of a star coming
from the sky to a initiate’s heart (which I experienced on VQ I).
===
2. The Soul of Shamanism: Western Fantasies, Imaginal
Realities
by Daniel C. Noel (Continuum Pub Group, 1997) ISBN: 0826409326
This is a weird book. About 80% of it seems unnecessary. “Too many
words.” But it makes several main points. One is that shamanism is being
recovered in a contemporary form in our time. A second is that Jung provides
the main resource for understanding and practicing shamanism. A third is that
while Eliade kicked off the process with his late 1940’s book (even though it
was too much “ascension” oriented, says the author), what brought the recovery
to a popular level was the Carlos Castaneda books the first of which appeared
within a decade of Jung’s death. This provides a nice little summary history of
neo-shamanism. (Almost every author I’ve read and/or heard of is mentioned
here!)
The author says that just about everybody isn’t doing it the right
way and that the only one who has a good sense of what a Western neo-shamanism
really is, is James Hillman. A large amount of the book’s space is devoted to
trying to spell out Hillman’s views, and the author keeps repeating that they
are not easy to follow or let alone explain. The great evil is rationalism; the
great good is “imaginalism.” Clearly, it’s far easier to say that rationalism
isn’t healthy than to say what is healthy.
The existence of neo-paganism is acknowledged and even (almost
unconsciously) admitted to being the only form of neo-shamanism that has a
ceremonial/ritual practice associated with it. Neither Hillman nor the author
seem to have yet picked up on ritual as the very means by which the images are
“owned”/ ingested/ incorporated into our lives.
I don’t think the New Age movement is as inadequate as the author
makes it out to be, and I feel uncomfortable with Hillman being place in the
role of savior.
===
3. Slavic Sorcery: Shamanic Journey of Initiation
by Kenneth Johnson (Llewellyn, 1998)
This is a half-good book. There's a lot of good information in the
book, but it is presented with no differentiation of value, and there is much
personal stuff on the author's part which is of total irrelevance.
"Slavic" here refers almost totally to old Russia. Of
special interest is the the chapter on ikons, and especially the end of that
chapter where St. George is equated with the Master of the Animals.
The one thing I found personally of interest was something about
shifting one's seat of consciousness from the head to the abdomen, not to the
heart (as in hesychasm) but to one of the lower chakras. The author makes the
point that the chakra centers of power in the body are understood (in
"Slavic" terms) very much like they are in India, except that the
Slavic perspective does not disdain the lower ones, as unworthy, the way Hindu
yogis do.
He points out that the Slavic, Siberian and Native American views
are in agreement on this. The author is not a patriarchal (body-soul) dualist;
he even refers to James Hillman's famous essay "Peaks and Vales" in
talking about the need for a recovery of "soul."
===
4. “Individuation and Shamanism”
by Downton, J.V., in Journal of Analytical Psychology, 1989. 34: 73-88
The article’s claim is that the stages of shamanic initiation, as
recorded for centuries by tribal peoples, provide a pattern for the individuation
process. Also, that this information is especially valuable because, while Jung
described individuation clearly (as a union of opposites: of consciousness and
the un-conscious), Jung falls short on the details.
For the most part, says the author, Jung “muted” the details of
the individuation process, specifically its lonely, difficult and terrifying
aspects. But, as author says, we need to know about these details if we are to
go through the process ourselves and to serve as guides for others.
Downton focuses on the image of the World Tree. Although his
references are fairly slim (only Eliade and Joan Halifax’ Shamanic Voices), he is not a victim
of that religious dualism which sees all “up” as good and all “down” as bad. He
says it doesn’t matter which way you think of it: the male-sky-bird working its
way down the tree, or the female-water-snake winding its way up; motion in
either direction-- as ascent and descent-- is equivalent (as images of
individuation).
He emphasizes not the earth but the “waters under the earth” as
being polar to the sky, and sees the earth itself as the barrier between the
sky and the waters. (I’d prefer to say that earth-- or even the tree itself--
is the union of those two poles.) He seems to join with J. Halifax in seeing
the union of opposites as a restoration of uroboric unity rather than as a
forward movement towards the attainment of a differentiated unity.
Perhaps this will be Christianity’s long term contribution to
human understanding: the demonstration that the goal of cosmic transfiguration
is more of a trinitarian “communitas” than a Buddhist “original block.” But
these are not the major issues here; what is, is the description of the stages
of shamanic development and/or individuation.
Obviously the stages may be named, numbered and imaged in many
ways. The shaman can be seen as making his way up (or down) the (usually seven)
branches of the tree; but in a significant alternative image, he is pictured as
a developing embryo in an egg in a nest on a branch of the tree.
In any case, the whole process starts with introversion and a
sense of vocation: focusing one’s attention within and doing so with a sense of
being called to do so is “preparation for taking the first step.”
SUMMARY of the Stages:
ONE: “Divine invasion.” Invasion of the consciousness by the
unconscious. The experience of chaos, being torn apart, killed and dismembered.
TWO: “Entering the strange land.” Once the ego is flooded with (or
immersed in) the unconscious, there is profound questioning and personal
redefinition: both ego-inflation from the sense of being “chosen” and also
alienation and loneliness.
THREE: "The dark and light vision.” One endures, living
between the opposites; experiences the tension; feeling that one has “no ground
to stand on.” (Sounds familiar!)
FOUR: “Becoming two worlds.” The pieces start to fall together as
the self permeates consciousness and remolds it in its own image. One becomes a
healed and healing symbol. The author says one “becomes a mandala.”
FIVE: “Taming the instincts.” As antagonism between the
unconscious and consciousness lessens, “the once oppressive animal spirit no
longer attacks.” He now becomes a friendly, helpful, guide. The numinous
energies of the unconscious are no longer feared. Creativity is available for
everyday use. (That son of a bitch trickster becomes Kola Coyote!)
SIX: “The world tree bears fruit.” As things calm down and some
degree of union of opposites is achieved, one begins to taste the fruits of
inner balance, harmony, relatedness. (This one’s image wasn’t fruit but honey,
the “honey of the good company.”) “The engagement period before the divine
marriage.” Greater autonomy and significantly less internal suffering.
SEVEN: “The One.” One becomes the fruit (honey, harmony, beauty).
The only task is to “go with the flow” and to “take whatever shape needed.”
===
5. A Magic Dwells
by Shiela Moon. Wesleyan U Press (1970)
This is a study of the Navajo emergence myth, familiar from
Centerpoint study days; it seems to be something like a study of the
individuation process from a highly communal or sociological and 'tribal'
viewpoint.
The section on pages 85-86 dealing with the Great Horned
Rattlesnake is very helpful. It represents "earth energy in heroic
size," feared as dangerous but also known as a helper, guardian spirit.
Paul Radin is quoted to the effect that the Horned Snake is the
same as the Plumed Snaked or Feathered Serpent, and "belongs
unquestionably to the old strata of belief; although adopted by shamans
everywhere, it has undergone almost no recasting."
It is a water spirit, but really a "helpful sky monster
controlling waters and thunders." I.e., it is the union of earth (snake)
and sky (bird) and the energies (thunders) flowing from that union. It is a
dynamic and power-filled axis mundi and tree of life image, a more elemental
image of the cosmic forces resulting from the union of opposites, just as
Coyote-Creator is himself yet another image, more human and four-dimensional,
of the same thing.
===
6. Studies in Siberian Shamanism
edited by H. N. Michael (U of Toronto Press, 1963)
This is number 4 in a series of translations from Russian sources
dealing with the "anthropology of the north" by the Arctic Institute
of North America.
Five articles; all by Soviet authors who would have been children
or young adults in 1917; a great deal of Soviet propaganda is included. Even
the editor remarks of one author (who has two of the five essays in the
volume), "his assumptions and conclusions [are] based on ideological
concepts."
Stimulated from my recent reading of Åke Hultkrantz's book on
Native American religion is the question of the age of the three-storey
cosmology and the cosmic tree. Information in this book indicates that the
three-level universe is probably as old as the human mind's ability to ask and
come up with an answer to the question of what the universe looks like.
Also, and significantly, I think: the cosmic tree by which the
shaman travels to the above and below worlds apparently is as old as the three-levels
concept itself. It looks as if the cosmic axis is the path to the North Star
(the hole in the sky through which one enters into the 'above' world). A
ceremonial tree seems always included in shamanic rites: erected so that it
extends from next to the hearth in the tent right up through the smoke hole. I
get the feeling the original pole or sapling was simply a visible indication of
the path to Polaris, and only later became an image on its own.
There is no indication from these essays that the axis-tree was
understood as uniting above and below in such a way that their union
constituted the real world of middle earth (rather than being just a link
between three more or less originally equal worlds). But that only says I
didn't see it (if it is in the texts, which I don't think it is), or that the
authors did not see it (if it is in fact part of the Native understanding), or
that they saw it and didn't themselves grasp its significance and thus didn't
report it.
Is this world created by the union of opposites in the vision of
the people being described in these essays? I don't know.
Is there a 'below' right from the start? Apparently, and at least
very early on it was valued no differently than 'above.' Only later (don't ask
when; apparently these sciences can say "later" based on linguistic
studies) was 'below' identified with land of the dead (and therefore?-- not
clear even here-- an evil place).
With regard to the question of how old the idea of 'moieties' or
other ceremonial expressions of union of opposites is (also stimulated by Ake's
book): there seems to be some indication that the idea is very old. For
example: the word 'phraty' (apparently a tribal word, like 'shaman' itself)--
which means something close to 'moeity'-- is said to come from the phrase
"to add half" (so that the result is a whole something). This would
seem to be an issue to keep looking for.
A problem (in getting a clear perspective on all this) is that the
author unquestioningly accepts the 19th century Mutterricht idea and seems
(very confusingly) to identify shamanism with the transition to male-dominated
civilization (rather than to the Neolithic goddess period). He says
categorically, for example, that "shamanism was originally the prerogative
of women."
Discussions of the shaman's costume, ritual tent and ceremonies
are radically limited to descriptions of very specific costumes, tents and
rites-- and are, therefore, greatly distorted. It is as if a car mechanic with
a Methodist Sunday School background, present at the liturgy of John Chrysostom
on a specific feast day, takes "field notes" from which he later
describes 'the heathen services.' Details are emphasized without any sense of
their importance or lack thereof: I guess this is classical ethnographic data-gathering--
with, here, the soviet overlay, to make it even more confusing. One essay-- to
indicate how much more than merely data-gathering is involved-- begins with
references to two earlier articles: "The Struggle Against Shamanism"
(1931) and "Shamanism as a Hindrance to Social Construction" (1932).
A book on Siberian shamanism I described in Nov 89 as
"unmanageable wealth"-- Popular Beliefs and Folklore Traditions in
Siberia, V. Dioszegi, ed. (The Hague, 1968) is one I may be ready to
look at, again.
Meanwhile... Of great personal interest is the original Siberian
word used for earth (world, universe, nature): it also means "that which
shows itself in natural phenomena" (that which thunders, for example); and
also sky and land, and the spirit-powers of the land, and even the
master-spirits of the animals and of nature.
I think it would not be inaccurate to say that in modern language
the word means something like "the sacred ecological world" or
"(the world of) nature surrounding humans and which is perceived to be
revelation." I.e., this may be a term which preserves the primordial
sacramental perception of the world! (I know that is far-fetched, but so is all
of this stuff!)
It is one of the oldest known words and appears in many ancient
languages: Sanskrit "bhagas", Avesta(?) "baga", Persian
"boga", Russian "bog", Korean and Ainu "pa",
Chinese "ban" and "byan." It's also the first word I
learned for God, in the Polish form, boze.
===
7. Rites and Symbols of Initiation
Mircea Eliade (HarperCollins, 1966) ISBN 0-06-131236-3
Initiation rites are essentially death-rebirth rites; ultimately,
all are based on puberty rituals and find their full flower in shamanic
initiation rites. The shaman is the ideal type of the "re-made man."
He is exemplar of humanness, and humanness is essentially religious. [A shaman
is a transformed person, essentially "spiritual."]
===
8. North American Indian Studies: European Contributions
Pieter Hovens, ed. (1981; Edition Herodot, Two volumes, 2nd: 1984)
These essays vary immensely; they seem to me to be poorly
translated, often pompously academic, and to deal to a great extent with
sociological data. I made the ILL request to get the book in order to see the
article by Rolf Krusche (of the Leipzig Museum of Anthropology), "The
Wabeno Cult as a Adversary of the Medewiwin."
It talks mostly about Wabeno's "bad press" as being
created by the Medi; offers an example of Parry Island where the opposite
happened: Wabeno is the established religion and Mede is "devil
worship." Other than that they danced all night (ending at dawn) and
handled hot things (the way Heyoka do), and were 'founded' by Morning Star, the
article gives little information about them.
Volume I contains an interesting essay about the Castaneda books.
Volume II has a long article by Åke Hultkrantz about Swedish contributions to
Native American (especially NA religions) studies; the Swedes really do deserve
much credit. The only other essay of interest is Franco Meli (U of Rome),
"Charles A. Eastman: A Parabola of Integration." Very sympathetic.
Claims that Eastman's Soul Of An Indian is his most important book, and that
it remains valid today as profound critique of white culture's lost-ness.
===
9. Tending the Fire, The Ritual Men's Group
Wayne Liebman. (Ally Press, 1991)
This is a gem of a book. Only 57 pages total, and the main points
are made in the first forty. Highly confirming of our men's group process and
my personal understanding of ritual. 'Verification' might be a better word than
'confirming.'
===
10. Inner Traditions of Magic
William Gray (Samuel Weiser, Inc. 1970)
This is the first real book about 'magic' I've ever read. It never
uses the words "craft" or "witchcraft" and doesn't seem
feminist or earth goddess oriented in a contemporary sense.
The author plunges right in, in chapter one, with a discussion of
images as divine energies which are the basis of our existence, and of ritual
as the process by which we make them our own. The language is exotic, to be
sure, but the concepts are quite clear. Far more even than Wayne Leibman's
book, this is highly confirming of my own understandings.
The real essence of the work seems to be creating of sacred space
via the circle/cross; here the guardians of the four directions are called by
the names of archangels, but there is also an above and below and emphasis on
the individual as the center of it all. Not unfamiliar, to be sure!
From this book I see a difference between this kind of 'magic'
activity and shamanism: it's the work of individuals or small groups, and
perhaps even "for all" in some sense, but never do I get the idea
that the practitioner acts to help another, less able, to come in contact with
the powers. I.e., there's no sense of the kind of healing and/or divining rites
so characteristic of shamanism.
The author says very many good things about the importance of a
modern calendar which keeps ties with the important ancient dates. He says
something like "This recovery is one of the most important things needed
in our time."
This book contains the only authoritative description I've ever
read of the Black Mass. Essentially it is the intentional use of power to do
evil, specifically by conceiving a child which would in some way be an
incarnation of evil powers. There's also a description of an "incarnation
of God" ceremony, where twelve "potent males," representing the
fullness of masculine attributes, donate semen used to artificially inseminate
an "untouched virgin." The resulting child, after 32 years, becomes a
sacrificial victim. Overall view: despite odd things like these rites, this is
a remarkably sensible book.
===
11. Turtle Island Alphabet, A Lexicon of Native American
Symbols and Culture by Gerald Hausman (St. Martin's Press, 1992)
Eighty or so Native American-related items are described here:
from arrow, basket, bead and bear to yucca and zigzag. The style is somewhat
fuzzy ("poetic") but readable for the most part. Nothing new, as far
as I can see, but much appreciation of Native American perspectives, which is
good enough.
The author is from New Mexico and the references are all heavily
southwest oriented, so it's not as interesting as it might be for my taste. For
example, "pipe" here means only a sacred object, not a way of life.
Many old and fascinating photos, which are merely credited but not, alas,
described.
===
12. The Wolves of Heaven, Cheyenne Shamanism, Ceremonies and
Prehistoric Origins, by Karl H. Schlesier. U of OK Press, 1987
John Grim's book [The Shaman: Patterns of Religious Healing
Among the Ojibway Indians] compares Ojibway and Siberian shamanism. This book goes
a bit further. It claims to prove the direct link between the two forms
(Siberian and Cheyenne) of shamanism.
===
13. Religion in Context by I. M. Lewis
(Department of Anthropology, London School of Economics and Political Science).
Cambridge University Press (1986).
This is a series of talks on cannibalism, witchcraft, possession,
etc. The point of the collection is that all are versions of shamanism. I found
it overly intellectualizing, but there's one neat quote: "The Russian St.
Nicholas has been adopted by the Tungus as the 'grand master' of shamans."
===
14. Witchcraft and Sorcery of the Native American Peoples Deward E. Walker,
Jr., ed. (U of Idaho Press, 1989)
Approximately 18 separate essays by different authors, each
discussing the topic-- from a totally anthropological or sociological
viewpoint-- for different regions of North and South America. Plains/Sioux are
not represented. Closest is Nez Perce of Northern Plateau. The only one which
looks of interest is the Great Lakes/ Menominee essay. This essay contains a
valuable list of hunting culture characteristics; also a description of wabenos
and tent-shakers-- as two different kinds of shaman; this is, perhaps, even a
major distinction.
===
15. Sioux Indian Religion
Raymond J. DeMaile and D.R. Parks, Eds.
U of OK Press, 1987. ISBN 0-8061-2055-X
This is a collection of talks given at an early 1980's symposium
on Sioux religion in Bismark, ND; organized apparently, by DeMaile and Jahner.
Demaile reviews 19th c beliefs, all of which is not unfamiliar.
Jahner presents myths, based on early written records of oral traditions; most
of which is quite unfamiliar, and most valuable.
Other chapters include a talk by a hereditary keeper of the sacred
pipe, something by Vine Delora, Sr., some by fundamentalist Native Americans, a
Native Amerocan Church leader, a Jesuit missionary honestly saying he and his
fellow Jesuits don't know what they're doing, and a very interesting talk by a
Lakota woman who is traditionalist, PhD academic scholar, and feminist.
Hers is probably the most thought provoking talk. It must have
been a very exciting symposium.
===
16. Oglala Religion by William K Powers. U of NB Press
(1977)
In the acknowledgements the author thanks the Red Cloud community
for allowing him to grow up there and become part of their culture when he was
unhappy with his own. He was 14! (There must be quite a personal story there.)
This is a good book. It's clearly an insider's look at Oglala
religion, but with all the academic apparatus being available to a white
author. The main point of the book is that religion (in all its various
expressions at Pine Ridge) is the one thing that gives Oglalas identity in
white man's culture and that it persists through numerous adaptations.
It is a sociological, anthropological study of Oglala religion for
its own sake. It takes that religion seriously in a way most books about Native
Americans don't. (If only a book on Native American religion from as serious a
viewpoint but with a psychological orientation would appear, we have some kind
of initial closure on these introductory stages of study!)
The section on Sacred Things (Part II) is as fine a summary as I
know. Within Part II, chapter 6 deals with Intermediaries (ritual specialists),
listing Heyoka, Bear Dreamers, Wolf Dreamers, etc. Chapter 7 deals with
Cosmology. Both are very well done chapters.
Some tidbits...
"Pitifulness" is the proper stance for one wishing to
live in harmony with nature. Our innate powerlessness when confronted with
danger, famine, etc. requires us to assert that we are pitiable. This is
something like the Christian assertion of sinfulness before God, but much
healthier.
With regard to the importance of seasonal celebrations: the Oglala
word for season and year is simply a form of the word for 'earth' or 'land.'
"Maka" is mother earth; "omaka" is season. (This really has
significance to me; it confirms that seasonal celebrations are indeed of primal
importance in being one with the primal gift of 'land.')
Of the 16 expressions of wakan, the second group of eight includes
the two-leggeds (along with tantaka, the four winds and others). Of interest is
that the two-legged group includes not just humans but also bears.
Chapter 10, on Political Discontinuity, makes clear how the
Jesuit-established catechist sodalities and a great deal more of what the
missionaries set up, allowed old Native Americans to maintain their
pre-reservation cultural identity. Due to the sodalities, the "sacred
persons" (as Powers calls the shamans) take on the social roles that
formerly had been those of the "political" tribal leaders. This makes
tremendous good sense, both expanding my appreciation, and deepening my
understanding, of Black Elk's 30 years of active involvement as a catechist.
Related to the above. The fact that "Not only do sacred
persons preserve the myth and ritual of their people, but they assume the
responsibilities to their people once held by now politically powerless tiyospaye leaders is also an
excellent confirmation of our understanding of the shaman as human norm rather
than social aberration. I see this development at Pine Ridge as simply a return
to what probably was the historically far earlier situation.
The various denominations on the Pine Ridge reservation play a
role similar to that of the old hereditary bands. Groups in geographical areas
tend all to join one denomination, but tend to marry (consciously or not, the
author isn't sure) outside the denomination, thus following the old rules for
not marrying within one's band. This is an excellent example of the author's
main point, that religion in its various adapted forms is the one thing that
allows the Native Americans to maintain their cultural identity. It's an
exciting idea, since it seems to guarantee some preservation of the 'old ways'
precisely by the religious denominations which on the surface would seem to be
the least likely tools for such preservation.
All in all, a delightful book. I'd like to own a copy. I've had
that feeling about very few of the numerous NA-related books I've read over the
last several years. The one other which stands out in my mind just now is Ake
Hultkrantz's with a simple title something like "NA Religion." (Alas,
most of Ake's texts have titles that all sound the same!)
===
17. Yuwipi: Vision and Experience in Oglala Religion
William K. Powers. U of NB Press (1982). ISBN 0-8032-8710-0
The author says he first went to Pine Ridge in 1948; this material
dates mostly from the 1960s. It's in narrative form, well done; much of it is
so familiar that I've either read the book before (which I doubt) or much of it
has been printed under other titles. But much, too, is unfamiliar. And of
interest. Powers is sympathetic and does not interpret through a
philosophically dualistic viewpoint.
Most interesting is the ambiguity regarding the spirits who gather
at a yuwipi meeting. The narrative's central yuwipi man addresses the spirits a
number of times as "you animals." In the yuwipi songs they are called
"stones." And the author clearly states that they are ghosts
(literally, formerly alive human persons). Also, and contradictorily, he says
that there are 405 kinds ("species") of them. (This number accounts
for the use of 405 tobacco ties, which we first encountered in reading about
Frank Fools Crow.)
The term used for what we might call "liturgical
participation" is "to help out." One "helps out" by
singing or whatever, but no less importantly by one's presence which
"supports the task." The "task" is the ritual for the
benefit of 'all my relations.' This 'helping out' notion seems to be an
excellent understanding of "public work" or "work of the
people."
At only 101 pages, this is a small but valuable book for anyone
who thinks he may be called to be a yuwipi man-- or anyone who just wants to
understand this specific form of shamanic activity.
===
18. My Friend the Indian James McLaughlin.
U of NB Press (1989). ISBN 0-8032-8160-4
The original of this text appeared in 1910. McLaughlin was an
Irish Catholic Canadian, who somehow became a US citizen and perhaps the most
important government agent for Native Americans over a period of forty or so
years. He was personally responsible for Sitting Bull and played a role in the
mid-December 1890 killing of Sitting Bull that led to Wounded Knee two weeks
later. I find the book very uninteresting. But despite all his goodwill, his
attitudes toward NAs are hard to take.
===
19. Sister to the Sioux, The Memoires of Elain Goodale Eastman
Kay Graber, Ed. U of NB Press (1978). ISBN 0-8032-6713-4
This is Mrs. Charles A. Eastman (Ohiyesa). Apparently her talents
as a writer to some extent account for the high readability of his books. She
was a published author before she met him. Raised in New England in a highly
creative farm family situation, she taught at Hampton Institute (for Blacks and
Native Americans, in Virginia-- the predecessor, I think, of Carlisle) for a
year, then started a school at age 23 in South Dakota.
She was in Pine Ridge village during December, 1990, and helped
tend the wounded from Wounded Knee in Holy Cross church. The kind of person I'd
like to have as a friend.
===
20. Shadow Catcher, Charles Fergus. Soho Press (1991).
This is a novel dealing with the 1913 Wanamaker Expedition, a
traveling circus-type activity which tried to get Native Americans to swear
allegiance to the American flag. A monument was to be built near the Statue of
Liberty somehow commemorating Native Americans. (I don't know if this is fact or
fiction. A Feb 1992 review in NY Times says the basics are fact.)
James McLaughlin, author of My Friend the Indian, is a principal
character. Hard to follow the plot readily. Revolves around a stenographer with
the expedition who takes candid photos with a hidden camera.
===
21. I Become A Part of It, Sacred
Dimensions in Native American Life. Parabola Books (late 1980s).
A collection of new essays and classic texts which have appeared
in Parabola magazine. Of special note is an original essay by Vine Deloria,
Jr. called "Out of Chaos."
His main point is that Native Americans share the classical
archetype of exile (as for example in the Biblical exile imagery) and that the
Exiled One is traditionally a person who brings back a wider, universal perspective
on what previously had been a limited parochial vision.
He notes that in our pathological fantasy-desert cultural context,
a communication of what is perhaps our last best hope-- the ancient Native
American sacred vision-- isn't possible. (This essay gives substance and
confirmation to my directive about being "nothing." It is personally
very significant.)
===
22. Understanding Russia, The Holy Fool in Russian Culture
by Ewa M. Thompson. University Press of American (1987).
The author doesn't much care for shamans or holy fools, but she
devotes one whole chapter (of the book's six) to showing how the institution of
Russia's holy fools is nothing but shamanism ("the universal pagan
religion") in Christian guise.
It's a form of culture shock to read this book right after reading
The Wolves of Heaven. Both authors make good cases for the Siberian origins of
both the shamans of the Great Plains Cheyenne tribes, and the holy fools of
Russia. Mind blowing!
Clearly, what is most of interest in the Russian religious
tradition is precisely its incorporation of "the universal paganism."
Three odds and ends:
1. St Nicholas is one of the highly revered personages of the
shamanic tribes of eastern Russian.
2. The holy fool, as the most typical Russian folk hero of all
time, is the link between shamanism and Christianity.
3. The holy fool's prestige was grounded in the shamanic belief in
the possibility of a direct contact with the supernatural.
Number 1 is fun. Numbers 2 and 3 are of great significance.
===
23. Initiation, by Jean Sybill La Fontaine
Manchester
University Press (1986, c1985).
Not bad.
A little too heavy on the “secret knowledge" idea, but a much broader than
usual sense of what ritual is all about. Good criticism of early writers on ritual.
===
24. The
Trickster in West Africa, A Study of Mythic Irony and Sacred Delight, by Robert D. Pelton. U of
California Press (c1980).
This is
the most intelligent book I’ve ever seen on the trickster. Text is from point
of view of religion, primarily; intelligently quotes scholars of religion as
well as Jung, Freud, et al. Too dense to be read casually.
===
25. The
Winter King,
a novel by Bernard Cornwell.
Lots of
blood and gore, but very interesting. A fictional account (none other is
possible) of the events leading up to Arthur becoming “king:” the unification
of British tribes and their efforts to repel the Saxons, after Rome had
abandoned them.
Fun
stuff, too, such as Lancelot is a jerk and a coward. It’s even mentioned in the
story how the tales will be changed so that future generations think of him as
a unblemished hero.
The
author mentions in a ending piece that the Christianity of the time would be
unrecognizable to us. That makes me think about other “models” of Christianity
for the future, how we can’t fight all the battles with the institution, and
that trying to take a stand against the meaningless which prevails in the
culture isn’t even possible. All one can do-- this one at least-- is be
marginal.
===
26. Fantasia
of the Unconscious and Psychoanalysis and the Unconscious, two essays by D. H. Lawrence
(Heinemann, 1961)
Some
interesting stuff here. Essays written in the early 1920’s, dealing with
psychoanalysis and sexual development. He makes a really good point: that
people need to be sexually “satisfied” or “fulfilled” first, and only then can
they-- and once they are, do they-- devoted themselves to a broader, cosmic
“purpose” (one that is “on behalf of all and for all”).
Other
interesting stuff, specifically about male development, but done in a style
requiring more work and effort than I can give to it just now.
Another
really important point is our sensitivity to “vibes” contained in things: old
houses, objects, trees, etc. And how all of those things relate to one’s inner,
wholistic maleness. (I think of two places I've experienced with very powerful
vibes: the Church of St. Genevieve (Paris,
from about the 5th c) and Bear Butte (South Dakota).
===
27. Shamanism
and the 18th Century
by Gloria Flaherty (Princeton U Press).
The author’s point is that shamanism has been known to the
intelligentsia of Europe since the age of explorers and missionaries. It was a
kind of shadow concern during the age of the Enlightenment. Catherine the Great
actually wrote a play about it! Goethe studied it. Faust is all about it. (Just
what E. Edinger says in his commentary on Faust.) Interesting stuff.
===
28. The Shaman From Elko, C. G. Jung Institute
of San Francisco.
This is a festscrift in honor of the 75th birthday of Joseph Henderson
(born and raised in Elko, Nevada). It is without doubt the most interesting
collection of Jungian essays I’ve ever come across.
Several are well worth looking at: Adler’s, Spencer’s, Travis’,
and Levene’s. One is a must: Reed’s, entitled “Shamanistic Principles.”
Brief summary: The shaman is essentially a keeper of values, which
he activates via ritual. He is called to this task by a spirit or spirits, who
are very often alien to his social setting. (The author’s examples are
fascinating!) Thus, by dealing with them, the shaman is on the leading edge of
cultural change. He is a culture-transformer, and this is the very substance of
(cosmic) evolution. (All this gives new and deeper-- and personally very
satisfying-- meaning to “marginality.”)
===
29. Maya Cosmos, by David Freidel, Linda Schele, Joy Parker (William Morrow and Co, 1993).
The subtitle of this book is “Three Thousand Years on the Shaman’s
Path.” It is not, however, so much about the practice of shamanism as it is of
how the shamanic world view was and is incarnated spatially in Maya culture.
“Mayan” refers to the native peoples of the Yucatan peninsula,
which includes today parts of Mexico, Belize, Honduras, etc. The Mayans were
preceded by the Omlecs, and much of the book is devoted to showing how the
Omlec culture not only was passed on to the Maya, but that it survives today
fairly strongly, although with a veneer of Spanish Christianity. (Thus the
“Three Thousand Years” of the subtitle.)
The book was co-written by three people totally immersed in field
research and teaching. Dennis Tadlock is frequently mentioned as a colleague.
(He apparently speaks the Mayan language and can read the glyphs on the temple
walls.) References to the glyphs constitute a major portion of the book, but for
me it is nearly impossible to make out what they are pictures of, let alone to
see how they can be translated into words and ideas as the authors do
constantly.
The essence of the book is discovery of the central place of what
the authors call the quincunx: a basic pattern of four corners and the
center marked off in some way: piles of stones in fields, the words
“north," "south," etc. written on walls (in glyphs for those
words, of course), posts at the corners of houses, pillars at the corners of
temples, etc.
This is, according to the authors, not just the laying down of
sacred space, but is in fact the re-creation each time it is done, of the
cosmos-- which is why sacred space is in fact constituted.
The World Tree, understood to be at the center, of course, is
always erected nearby, and much of the time in the form of a Western-looking
Christian cross (but which in fact in pre-Christian by millennia).
Human beings are thus responsible for the on-going creation of the
world, maintaining balance/harmony by its on-going renewal, re-creation,
transfiguration.
A shaman is simply someone who is especially good at what everyone
has to do: at entering into communion with the life-giving forces and powers of
the universe. The life-force comes through at the world-center, exuded as sap
from the world tree. It is imaged as sweat from a human body, but also as
blood, semen, nectar from flowers, wax dripping from a candle, rust forming on
a piece of iron, etc. It is given by the gods in exchange for goodwill gifts to
them (flowers, tobacco, blood, whiskey, whatever).
The sense that the gods/spirits need us humans seems to be quite
strong; at one point the text sounded like the old catechism: the gods/spirits
“made us to know and love them.” The shaman is called a “do-er” and the
life-force is called itz; thus the shaman is an itz-er: a “do-er of itz.”
All of this world-center establishing is tied in with the stars,
notably the Milky Way (which is the World Tree) and the seasons, as well as the
years. (These are the people who have that billions-of-years long cyclic
calendar of which the Harmonic Convergence in 1987 was an expression.)
Appropriating the life-force takes multiple forms, everything from
the famous ball-playing rites to blood-letting and human sacrifice. Apparently
blood-letting by perforation of the penis was common, and there are numerous
flint penis-perforators, in the shape of scorpions, mostly, found as artifacts.
One photo, of a rain-making ceremony, and the diagram which went
with it (pages 32 and 56) was especially interesting. Above an altar-table are
strung sky-ropes and corner tree-branch supports, from which hangs a circle
(made of gourds) called the sky-hole or glory-hole, the portal through which
the life-giving spirit-forces come. It sure looks to me like a Central American
version of a shaking tent. Fascinating!
Turtles, by the way, play a central role in the cosmology. They
give birth, through a crack in the carapace, to the reborn Mother-Father god
who is the origin of the world.
===
30. The
Nature of Shamanism: Substance and Function of a Religious Metaphor, by Michael Rapinsky-Naxon (SUNY
Press, 1993).
I found
this accidentally, while looking for something else, at the county library. The
author acknowledges writing it under a compulsion: he had been working on
another book when this one more or less demanded to be written. [A great
example of the cosmic process on Earth making itself known!]
The
book is not easily summarized. It might be called an overview of shamanism. The
emphasis is not, however, on the essence of shamanism as the title implies, so
much as on the persistence of shamanism to our day in both surviving native
cultures and in the ‘high religions.’
The
author knows an incredible amount about shamanism, and sometimes the text seems
to have no point other than to demonstrate that knowledge. And it is literally
“all over the place;” he moves from examples in one cultural area to another
and from one time in history to another without any clear pattern.
He
seems little concerned with shamanism’s origins, what I think of as its
“normal” (hunting culture) form for most of human history. And there is much
more emphasis on shamanism's biological-psychic basis in brain chemistry and in
the use of hallucinogenic plant substances.
Examples
from native North America are conspicuously absent: almost all his native
examples come from Central and South America, and his interest in South America
and drug-induced visions put Michael Harner’s work in the spotlight.
I see
no evidence of the author’s sense of a clear connection between shamanism,
hunting and sacred maleness; he seems, instead, to accept uncritically the
perspectives of those who see everything arising only from a Great Mother.
Despite
all this, it is a fascinating book, simply because it contains so much
interesting information. Most delightful was his list (p 12) of persons whose
work has especially contributed to our understanding of shamanism. I was
familiar with every name on his list!
Especially
in the author’s favor is the fact that he does not seem to buy into the
patriarchal matter-spirit duality of so many writers on the topic.
His
notes and bibliography are a gold mine of resources. They include references to
the Saami shaman's drum, the Mochia Culture of Peru, spirit possession in
Belize, the Cubeo Indians of the North West Amazon, the religions of Mongolia,
the rock art of Texas Indians, ancient Texans, the shamanism and art of the
Eastern Tukanon Indians, and even a study of the Menorah as The Tree of
Light.
===
31. Anthropology and the Study of Religion, edited by Robert L. Moore and Frank E. Reynolds, Center
for the Scientific Study of Religion, Chicago, 1984
This book is an attempt to overcome the split between anthropology
and religious studies. It contains three sets of articles (10 in all) dealing
with scholars whose work impinges on both areas. Some essays were not of
interest and one was incomprehensible, but the section on Victor Turner
contains two fascinating essays.
---
One of them is: "Women’s Stories, Women’s Symbols: A Critique
of Victor Turner’s Theory of Liminality."
The author, Caroline Walker Bynum, is a professor of History at
the University of Washington and interested in medieval female mystics. Her
point is that Turner’s idea of liminality and transformation simply doesn’t
apply to women. She makes an excellent case for the fact that while
transformative experience may be absolutely necessary for male growth and
development, it isn’t for women. Worth reading, as much for the exotic medieval
females she mentions-- many of whom I’d never heard!-- as well as for its main
point.
---
The second especially interesting essay is "Space and
Transformation in Human Experience" by Robert L. Moore, a professor at
Chicago Theological Seminary and editor of the whole series of which this text
is a part.
If the essay by Caroline Walker Bynum strongly supports an
understanding of the need for transformation experience in male development,
this essay strongly supports an understanding of ritual as the necessary
container where it happens.
Moore begins by saying that therapy and religious guidance have
jointly neglected ritual (as well as any attention to cultural anthropology)
because of their narrow Protestant and “liberal” bias stemming fro the 1950’s.
The essay has three sections, dealing with Eliade’s, Turner’s and Moore’s ideas
on sacred space.
1) Eliade. Space-time, he says, is in fact experienced as sacred or
profane. Profane means lacking orientation, lacking a center, having no contact
with the “really real.” It is, thus, devoid of creativity and is not
life-giving. In profane space life and cosmos deteriorate.
Sacred space , in contrast, is experienced as empowering and
life-giving, strong, significant, real, re-creative. Such sacred space can be
where a hierophany has occurred, where a sign indicates the sacred, and where
the sacred may be evoked.
While humans may evoke, but can not create sacred space, they must
always guard it: steward the boundaries, keep the enclosure. Doing so is one of
the most ancient and important of human activities. Without it there is no
order, no creativity, no renewal-- i.e. precisely none of those things which
define male spirituality!
In any initiatory, healing or transformational experience, sacred
space is the place of transition. There is where cosmos/self is renewed.
A primary task of the shamanic person is to locate and effectively
use this transformative space, to help the initiate enter and leave it. It is,
says Eliade, via initiation that men become human. And without it contemporary
life is radically impoverished.
2) Turner. Turner’s work builds on van Gennep’s pioneering
recognition of three phases of rite of passage: Separation (creation of a
cultural milieu other than that of the ordinary/conventional), Transition (the
limen [margin or threshold], where’s one’s old identity is stripped away and a
new meaning and purpose comes to be), and Incorporation ( the return to
conventional world but bringing to it and for it one’s new identity, meaning,
purpose).
Elaborating on Gennep’s transitional phase, Turner made three main
points:
1.
He distinguished ceremony (such as a high school graduation) from ritual.
“Ceremony indicates, ritual transforms.”
2.
He emphasized that in liminality the “old” is destroyed and the “new” created.
3.
He distinguished between the liminal and liminoid. Liminal is a “tribal” or
collective experience, tied into natural life-cycles and calendar rhythms and
social crises; it is the place where conventional social structures are
minimalized. Liminoid, in contrast, is non-cyclic and non-biological
experience: far more that of the individual, and marginal to conventional
cultural norms. It tends to be associated with leisure: the theater, ballet,
art, music, film, literature, poetry and pilgrimage. Such things, says Turner,
“ are dismembered components of the liminal.”
Turner apparently saw the great divide between tribal and
contemporary to be the industrial revolution, but also felt that the liminal is
still to be found in churches, cults, Masonic orders, fraternity initiations--
i.e., in various groups within society, but not in society as a whole.
3) Moore. It is just this point (about liminal and liminoid) that
Moore is critical of. He wants to make the liminal/liminoid distinction not
between groups-within-society vs whole-society but rather “on the basis of how
the boundaries that delimit sacred space are constituted and maintained or
‘stewarded’;” i.e., on the “relative importance of the leadership of ritual
elders.”
“Ritual leadership is the key variable,” Moore says. Liminal space
requires it, liminoid space doesn’t. Liminality occurs “because of the
availability of knowledgeable ritual elders.” Their “conscious intentionality”
is what holds and keeps the boundaries so that the intensity of the transition
is contained. The transitional process goes awry is the leader does not prevent
the boundaries from becoming permeable.
Anyone seeking transformation today is bound to end up on the
margins of society and at natural boundaries (seashore, mountains, desert). But
“some forms of contemporary psychotherapy are liminal.”
The essence of it all is a safe container, where conventional
autonomy may be surrendered and the individual submit to a process which has
its own autonomy. The boundaries must be stable, impermeable. The ritual
leader’s job is to maintain the boundaries, to facilitate the sacred context by
avoiding the kinds of behavior that destroy the possibility of its appearance.
He is not in control of the process, he “merely” guards the
enclosure. In all culture, he is keeper of the threshold. “The rigorous
attention to detail characteristic of ritual elders reflects not a sense of
mastery of sacred space. On the contrary, such care is an indication of the
ritual elder’s awareness of the fragility of regenerative space and the ease
with which it can be spoiled.”
+++
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