shamanic doubling / minus the morning

Let me resort to speaking only from my own experience. There is such a thing as shamanic doubling. But these shamanic doublings are organic and not defined by such contrivances as a mechanical drop of the butcher's cleaver. Shamans may be masters (and mistresses?) of splitting and dissociation in order to give an advantage to one part of their minds and not the other/s. Self hypnosis and the resulting ability to "change one's form" were also aspects of the ninja's arsenal of tricks used in order to enhance their power.

This conceptualisation of shamanic "magic" is well and good in terms of elucidating some aspects of the way that a shaman may utilise his psyche for achieving particular ends. It goes to the "magic" side of shamanism -- but it rests also, as it were, on that side of things, where shifts of consciousness pertain. It might be argued, and quite reasonably so, that this shamanic "magic" has nothing to do with reality. Reality, as it were, abides on the non-magic side of things, by definition. Reality is that place, the range of experiences and the condition of being where things do not change "magically".

So this conceptualisation of shamanic magic is limited. One would have to have this magic become dialectical, right to the point where it was influencing and altering reality itself, for shamanic magic to be genuinely efficacious.

The "magic" on the one side of things acts as the suggestion of a change, as the will for a change, yet if it does not change reality itself, it remains only will and desire.

I will say that the barrier -- the bridge -- between the realm of what is and the realm of the spirit can and must be crossed. At the same time, one does not do so without sacrificing to the gods, without the release of strong emotion that comes from a searing of the flesh. Without emotion being released through pain, the bridge is not crossed "as spirit".

Shamanic magic involves a doubling -- where the body remains on one side of the gulf and the mind as spirit crosses stealthily over the bridge. Such doubling is required for the shamanic project. A sacrifice of who one is in the concrete and fixed sense is therefore always necessary if one is to attain shamanic doubling.

Thus, there is the need for a shamanic wounding, to release the force of emotion that would enable one to "cross the bridge". One sacrifices a part of oneself, a part of one's identity, actually, although the sum quotient of the experience of sacrifice is some degree of physical and mental pain.

As the pain releases emotional energy that had long been held in place by normal psychological mechanisms of repression, one's character structure becomes liquid again -- liquid and fluid enough to cross 'as spirit" over the bridge, so long as one wills to do so and has the guts.

And so one crosses, and returns in due course from this journey, with a different range of conceptions of the world and a different sense of self. The price has been paid -- the body and mind are able to be healed again. (Although nothing is assured -- they do not call this a "difficult journey" for nothing.)

One can read more about the Way of the Shaman and the difficulty of a shamanic crossing in Nietzsche's Zarathustra.

Wouldst thou go into isolation, my brother? Wouldst thou seek the way unto thyself? Tarry yet a little and hearken unto me.

"He who seeketh may easily get lost himself. All isolation is wrong": so say the herd. And long didst thou belong to the herd.

The voice of the herd will still echo in thee. And when thou sayest, "I have no longer a conscience in common with you," then will it be a plaint and a pain.

Lo, that pain itself did the same conscience produce; and the last gleam of that conscience still gloweth on thine affliction.

But thou wouldst go the way of thine affliction, which is the way unto thyself? Then show me thine authority and thy strength to do so!

Art thou a new strength and a new authority? A first motion? A self- rolling wheel? Canst thou also compel stars to revolve around thee?

Alas! there is so much lusting for loftiness! There are so many convulsions of the ambitions! Show me that thou art not a lusting and ambitious one!

Alas! there are so many great thoughts that do nothing more than the bellows: they inflate, and make emptier than ever.

Free, dost thou call thyself? Thy ruling thought would I hear of, and not that thou hast escaped from a yoke.

Art thou one ENTITLED to escape from a yoke? Many a one hath cast away his final worth when he hath cast away his servitude.

Free from what? What doth that matter to Zarathustra! Clearly, however, shall thine eye show unto me: free FOR WHAT?

Canst thou give unto thyself thy bad and thy good, and set up thy will as a law over thee? Canst thou be judge for thyself, and avenger of thy law?

Terrible is aloneness with the judge and avenger of one's own law. Thus is a star projected into desert space, and into the icy breath of aloneness.


To-day sufferest thou still from the multitude, thou individual; to-day hast thou still thy courage unabated, and thy hopes.

But one day will the solitude weary thee; one day will thy pride yield, and thy courage quail. Thou wilt one day cry: "I am alone!"

One day wilt thou see no longer thy loftiness, and see too closely thy lowliness; thy sublimity itself will frighten thee as a phantom. Thou wilt one day cry: "All is false!"

There are feelings which seek to slay the lonesome one; if they do not succeed, then must they themselves die! But art thou capable of it--to be a murderer?

Hast thou ever known, my brother, the word "disdain"? And the anguish of thy justice in being just to those that disdain thee?

Thou forcest many to think differently about thee; that, charge they heavily to thine account. Thou camest nigh unto them, and yet wentest past: for that they never forgive thee.

Thou goest beyond them: but the higher thou risest, the smaller doth the eye of envy see thee. Most of all, however, is the flying one hated.

"How could ye be just unto me!"--must thou say--"I choose your injustice as my allotted portion."

Injustice and filth cast they at the lonesome one: but, my brother, if thou wouldst be a star, thou must shine for them none the less on that account!

And be on thy guard against the good and just! They would fain crucify those who devise their own virtue--they hate the lonesome ones.

Be on thy guard, also, against holy simplicity! All is unholy to it that is not simple; fain, likewise, would it play with the fire--of the fagot and stake.

And be on thy guard, also, against the assaults of thy love! Too readily doth the recluse reach his hand to any one who meeteth him.

To many a one mayest thou not give thy hand, but only thy paw; and I wish thy paw also to have claws.

But the worst enemy thou canst meet, wilt thou thyself always be; thou waylayest thyself in caverns and forests.

Thou lonesome one, thou goest the way to thyself! And past thyself and thy seven devils leadeth thy way!

A heretic wilt thou be to thyself, and a wizard and a sooth-sayer, and a fool, and a doubter, and a reprobate, and a villain.

Ready must thou be to burn thyself in thine own flame; how couldst thou become new if thou have not first become ashes!

Thou lonesome one, thou goest the way of the creating one: a God wilt thou create for thyself out of thy seven devils!

Thou lonesome one, thou goest the way of the loving one: thou lovest thyself, and on that account despisest thou thyself, as only the loving ones despise.

To create, desireth the loving one, because he despiseth! What knoweth he of love who hath not been obliged to despise just what he loved!

With thy love, go into thine isolation, my brother, and with thy creating; and late only will justice limp after thee.

With my tears, go into thine isolation, my brother. I love him who seeketh to create beyond himself, and thus succumbeth.--

Thus spake Zarathustra.

If on the basis of this text, shamanism doesn't interest and entice you, then I wouldn't be surprised. Just keep in mind that shamans are generally initiated against their will, and not by choice.

And now we return to the issue of the dialectics of shamanism and how shamanic "magic" can influence the real world.

Changes are possible -- and the strongest certainly I had that I had changed not gradually (and thereby naturally) but somehow absolutely and definitively was when my book was being analysed for editing by a kind man (whom I paid well), who tried to find the continuity of the old, pre-shamanised self, which should have been there "in reality" -- but wasn't.