Some anonymous moron who goes under the name of "Mark" has bothered to gesticulate in an ape-like fashion at me concerning the fact that although I might possibly be a "nice girl" I am not doing him any favours by using academic language on my blog.
I accept that he is not an academic, by the sounds of things, and that he doesn't like mah way of talkin'.
But logic would dictate that he simply buzzes off then!
Some anonymous moron called "Mark"
will power and self: the shamanistic couplet
It has been a very personal quest to figure this out, and that is why I have become very irritable when life has got in the way of this endless parsing of data. It has to do with the difference between an orientation towards the Ego, or towards the Self, and how I orient myself in relation to these.
"The self" is roughly equated with Nietzsche's "abyss" (a kind of nihilistic serenity that is at odds with conformity to social mores and conventions, but can exist alongside them.) It is also, in my thesis, associated with the pre-Oedipal identity (as opposed to the Oedipal identity, which is, of course, ego oriented). We all have both self and ego, but few people realise this. To be able to realise it is to effectively double one's identity -- which is shamanistic!!!!
I had been trying to understand the Western ego for some time. I was particularly trying to understand it when I did my honours dissertation. I find that although it is a psychological construct that we all share, the degree of emphasis that Ego is given, in relation to the Self, is strongly a feature of cultural determinants and conditioning.
The Japanese and black Zimbabweans (and to a lesser degree, also white Zimbabweans) tend to give a stronger functional emphasis to the Self and its perceptions, rather than to the Ego and its evaluations, in the ways that they orient themselves towards the world. This means that their perceptions are imbued with a stronger sense of Animism and (for want of a better term), "jouissance", in comparison to those whose approach is relatively more Ego-oriented.
I understand, now, that it is a well established error that imagines a more ego-oriented approach to have something to do with stronger will power. This is a fundamental insight that I have gained through studying Marechera. One who is oriented, relatively, more towards the Self than towards the Ego can, in fact, have tremendously strong will power. The combination of will power with a STRONG orientation towards the Self (rather than towards the Ego, in the way that one experiences the world) is to be associated with shamanism, as a spontaneous product of a cultural and (therefore, also) neurological orientation towards perception.
One simply is not a shaman without strong will power, as the whole of shamanistic training is in fact geared towards developing stronger will power in order to handle more shocking and mind-blowing perceptions. To handle these perceptions well enables one to be more oriented towards the Self and less oriented towards the Ego.
The shaman's devaluation of an ego-oriented relationship to the world also has much in common with other mystical traditions. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_(illusion)
real individualism
In actual fact, it is not even possible to treat a person as if he or she were an individual if you do not allow that they dwell within a political and social context not of their own making, and that there are some things they cannot control. It is this very struggle to come to terms with the aspects of the world that they didn't create that defines subjectivity. Even more than that, it is by engaging in a struggle both within and against aspects of one's environment that enables subjectivity to come into existence!
To treat an person as if their individuality already pre-existed their struggle for subjectivity is to rob them of their potential, and to steal away what ought to have been their most prized possession.
To conflate the person and his or her subjectivity with the nature of his or her environment is to do utter damage to that person. One is hardly the product of their environment in a narrow, very simple sense. Or, if one truly is just a product of one's environment, then it is assumed that one has been limited, by the event of not having to struggle to attain one's very subjectivity.
Both the consumerist rightists and the easy-going leftists are the enemies of individualistic subjectivity.
Lacan and shamanism
There are certain problems with Lacan's system of thought, from a shamanistic viewpoint. The fundamental crux of the problem lies here:
Lacan’s subject—the subject of the “return to Freud,” the true subject of psychoanalysis—is none other than the split subject: the barred S. ...
The bar functions here as and/or. The elements split by the bar convey exclusive meanings, only one of which can be taken at a time. ... One side of the bar—an exclusive choice—must be chosen. Thus the subject—S—is split into two (parts/aspects), only one (path) of which can/must be chosen/followed.
Yet, the paradigm of shamanism disagrees. The shamanistic paradigm -- which involves conceptual doubling of the self -- is arguably related to an abnormal psychology, but the shaman's use of their mind nonetheless constitutes a profound adaptive leap in consciousness. Lacan's split subject is belied by shamanistic knowledge, which allows for a simultaneous dualism of consciousness whereby the lower and the higher minds are in communication with each other.
This adaptation represents an advance in human consciousness, since the different parts of the mind are brought together to work in tandem with each other, and not in contradiction.
In other ways, Lacan's paradigm readily lends itself to a shamanistic viewpoint. One can view the three levels of consciousness of Lacan's paradigm as generally relating to the three levels of human neurological structure. The cerebral cortex handles the work of the "Symbolic", in Lacan's system. The lower, "limbic system", is responsible for producing the discourse that pertains to Lacan's "Imaginary"; and that which operates at the level of registering "the Real" is R-Complex -- the reptilian brain, which is the oldest part of the human brain system in evolutionary terms.
Once can see the mental products of the limbic system and R-complex as forming one side of Lacan's subject, and the mental products of the cerebral cortex as forming the other side, with an effective bar of psychological repression keeping them apart. Thus, one can process ideas from either one side of the mind, or from the other side, but not simultaneously from both -- according to Lacan's system.
By conceptual contrast with this representation of the mind and its mode of functioning, shamans can access information coming from all levels, at any time.
So it is that I have learned to consciously allocate a division of labour between the different parts of my mind. Concerning issues of power -- especially when there is an allergy within normal society, to dealing with such issues directly -- I consciously hand over the responsibility to work on improving my political status in the world to R-complex. (R-Complex is able to bypass all excuses generated by the consciousness of conventional society, in order to get to the bottom of issues of power, and restore balances. It is ferocious, though, and one often has to return to the use of conscious mediation to protect certain targets against the exacting coldness and determinism of R-Complex's destructive fury.)
Matters of sexuality are handled by the limbic system, without the necessary interventions of the conscious mind, if one is shaman.
Intellectual knowledge draws on all three systems of discourse, stemming from the three systems of the brain, and their separate spheres of knowledge, which are allowed to interact under the guidance of the cerebral cortex. The task of a shaman is to use one's conscious knowledge of how these other systems of the mind work in service of the higher mind's practical goals.
how shamanism heals trauma
"The common accusatory stance towards perpetrators and victims reinforces such a constricted state of mind and narrows the range of opportunities for traumatized individuals to reenter the libinized social matrix." ---49.
Emery, Paul F. & Emery, Olga B. "Psychoanalytic Considerations on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder." Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy 19.1 (1989): 39-53.
Shamanism, however, enables a re-entry in the libidinised matrix, by compelling you to encounter psychical forces as they are, that is as contingent forces (and to view yourself as a contingent being.)
This is in contrast to the traumatised mind's tendency to understand psychical forces as traumatic absolutes, which were directed at you personally.
Such a traumatised perspective wastes much of ego's energy because of an investment in the idea of absolute forces – ie. the idea that there are absolute victims or absolute perpetrators – which, in turn, leads to a "repetition compulsion" .
And the "repetition compulsion" involves constantly trying to itch a wound, as if by attempting to grasp some non-existent revelatory meaning, assumed to lurk behind the original experience of the trauma.
By contrast, shamanistic experience reveals that life is contingency, and that such an absolute meaning does not exist to be found, but that life has much to offer by virtue of its being contingency. It is by means of this very different experience of the nature of reality that shamanism cures.
On aggression
Kleinian theory suggests that there is a positive side to aggression. It's the means by which we separate from our parents and assert our identities as separate individuals. For instance, a man who lacks sufficient aggression to create that separation from his parent figure can end up living the whole of his adult life with his mother. Consider Principal Skinner, on the Simpsons television programme, and you've got an image of this type. Consider the danger that is entailed in devaluing aggression per se. Aggression, whilst negative in much of its potential to do harm, is also part of the life force that makes us free from emotional dependency on others. According to Nietzsche, "the strong are as naturally inclined to separate as the weak are to congregate". The strong, in other words, have more of the aggressive drive than do the weak.
When I consider the ideologies of gender that are au courant, and how one is expected to be, on the basis of one's gender, I find that I pursue my comfort in the opposite direction to that which is generally anticipated in terms of gender.
I have tried school teaching,working within that system where there is always a surfeit of parents, but I feel an overwhelming boredom with it, and then I cannot focus. This is not a contrived condition on my part. I'm not trying to be something that I'm not. To be able to fit within this community requires an overarching desire to be at one with all the other members of the school community. I cannot feel this at all. Rather, in such a situation, I am inclined to move away as much as possible, to find some privacy. The next step is to feel real again by taking on a challenge that involves substantial conflict, in some way.
I stress that this, for me, is a natural movement. The assumption that something that is given the evaluation of "strong" ought to take much more effort, to deserve this status, than that given the nomenclature of "weak" is very much mistaken. Strength, in this Nietzschean sense, does not imply the gritting of the teeth, and the compounding of a huge amount of stored up energy, in order to express itself. Rather, it expresses itself naturally - which is to say, "instinctively".
We don't express our strength by sticking with impossible circumstances, doggedly, but in the terms of Nietzsche's revaluation of values, we express it on the basis of instinct.
There are those, however, who continue to inform me that my instincts are other than I experience them. To them, I am just a 19th Century Germanic dame, and so impossible to understand!
Nietzschean dogmatism is an oxymoron
Ego invests in a dogmatic perspective when it is weak, but Nietzsche's philosophy also becomes a dogmatic perspective when ego identifies with it.
To say: "I will sink or swim by this particular ideology," is to invest my ego-identity in that perspective. To the degree that someone seems to attack my chosen perspective, they are attacking me. I am vulnerable to my belief system that commands me to sink or swim. I will, on this basis of ego-identification, ferociously attack others whom I perceive to be attacking my ideology. I will feel that my ego is at stake in making a good attack. But-- it turns out, I am suffering from a case of mistaken identity!
From Thus Spake Zarathustra, 1891:
"Ego," sayest thou, and art proud of that word. But the greater thing- in which thou art unwilling to believe- is thy body with its big sagacity; it saith not "ego," but doeth it.
What the sense feeleth, what the spirit discerneth, hath never its end in itself. But sense and spirit would fain persuade thee that they are the end of all things: so vain are they.
Instruments and playthings are sense and spirit: behind them there is still the Self. The Self seeketh with the eyes of the senses, it hearkeneth also with the ears of the spirit.
Ever hearkeneth the Self, and seeketh; it compareth, mastereth, conquereth, and destroyeth. It ruleth, and is also the ego's ruler.
Behind thy thoughts and feelings, my brother, there is a mighty lord, an unknown sage- it is called Self; it dwelleth in thy body, it is thy body.
There is more sagacity in thy body than in thy best wisdom. And who then knoweth why thy body requireth just thy best wisdom?
Thy Self laugheth at thine ego, and its proud prancings. "What are these prancings and flights of thought unto me?" it saith to itself. "A by-way to my purpose. I am the leading-string of the ego, and the prompter of its notions."
The Self is "a sage", that is generally unknown but, according to shamanistic thinking, can be accessed directly. It is the underestimation of the Self that is the cause of the development of any immature response to reality -- ie. an orientation of faith. If one is lacking in the knowledge of this Self, one believes dogmatically, because one must -- because one fears that not to believe is lose the ability to make one's self real, in the sense of being identifiable by others. An ideology seems to give the inwards self outwardly objectifiable characteristics. The contents of a particular ideology seem to describe what those outward characteristics are, in a way that makes them palpable both to oneself and to others.
Yet for all that, one is not the ideology one has embraced. To imagine that one sinks or falls on the basis of the outwards sinking or falling of an ideology is to belittle oneself. Why should others have this power of veto over you? What was it that made you give it to them, but your weakness? Immaturity. It is a stage we go through. The structure that supports us towards adulthood is generally attachment to a faith, of one sort or another. That is, one identifies, for at time, with a faith, as one progresses towards the capacity for autonomy. In Nietzschean terms: Religion thus becomes a training ground for this spiritual autonomy. It ought not to be identified with this autonomy itself.
Later, trauma ruptures the structure of faith, and leads the way to knowlege of the Self. This Self turns out to be rooted in the reality principle of the primeval mind. It can, for instance, determine that you are lying to yourself, so shrewd is its capacity to judge accurately whether a particular attitudinal stance is life embracing or life denying:
The creating Self created for itself esteeming and despising, it created for itself joy and woe. The creating body created for itself spirit, as a hand to its will.
Even in your folly and despising ye each serve your Self, ye despisers of the body. I tell you, your very Self wanteth to die, and turneth away from life.
No longer can your Self do that which it desireth most:- create beyond itself. That is what it desireth most; that is all its fervour.
But it is now too late to do so:- so your Self wisheth to succumb, ye despisers of the body.
To succumb- so wisheth your Self; and therefore have ye become despisers of the body. For ye can no longer create beyond yourselves.
To be able to directly access this Self spells an end to the pressure from ego to identify an outwards ideological stance. Rather, one's ego is internally stabilised by recognising this Self and its ongoing advice, which enhances one's ability to embrace life authentically. Ego no longer seeks out others' approval, when one has acquired the ability to make a correct self-estimation of whether one's behaviour is oriented towards life or towards death.
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