How shamanism makes one more rational and original – by confronting one's cognitive dissonance about power relations, through facing death. This cognitive dissonance is normative (and likely controlled by the brain part geared to survival -- lizard brain). It involves an aspect of unquestioning conformity in us since we are all inducted into systems of power that pre-existed our birth, and which we needed to adapt to regardless of our individual proclivities or will. Facing absolute loss, as an existential fact, however, enables us to overcome the superego prohibition against seeing reality more as it is, less as we hope it might be.
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A definitive experience for me was when I was about three and at a nursery school run by some South African ladies (ie. not part of my culture). I was a loner then as I am now, and one of the hardest concepts (which I still haven't managed to come to terms with) was how to "play" in a way that was prescribed rather than spontaneous.
When play was spontaneous -- in other words, on my own, (or around the middle of primary school, with a group of friends who were similar to me), I could keep going for hours. But at the age of three, I was required to do orchestrated play, and I couldn't wrap my mind around how to seem to be spontaneous whilst not actually being so. I believe this puzzle has been at the core of much of my orientation towards socialization as an adult. I perceive that I am supposed to act as if I believe I am free to behave in any spontaneous manner that may appeal to me, but at the same time to conform to rigidly circumscribed gender roles, in many cases. I find I can't hold the two things in my head at once -- to maintain the appearance of seeming to be free, whilst knowing that I am not actually so.
Anyway, these South African ladies would not allow me to play alone, even in a way that I already felt to be very circumscribed (because it had to be within the walls of a brightly coloured prison, crowded and claustrophobic, when I wanted to be outside.) I had taken the building bricks from the shelf to play with, and was trying to occupy myself with them, when these ladies interrupted to tell me that I was not playing in a way that was suited to my gender.
"Those are boys' toys! You need to play with other girls. Here is a group of them, playing house..."
So, they made me join about six of them who were on a bed, playing roles of mummies and daddies (honestly, I can't remember exactly what they were doing, but each person had a role within this imaginary nuclear family, and it seemed clear to me at the time that I had been given a superfluous role, that I didn't really belong in this already gelled together nuclear family).
And not only was I a fifth wheel, but I couldn't see what they game was about. I couldn't understand the logic of what was being played out, nor could I grasp my role, or why I needed one to play.
Ultimately, what was most disturbing is that I couldn't actually grasp the meaning of play under such circumstances. I was being forced to "play" in a way that suited the needs and values of the South African ladies, but I could not find the emotional or intellectual correlation within myself that would make the play seem authentic (and actually it was an intellectual link I was seeking).
Since then, I have had similar experiences, whenever social mores have deemed that I need to participate with groups of women, in an experience of free "play". I am quite incredulous to the whole thing. I can't, for instance, see the "play" that I am supposed to experience in a "hen's night"/bachelorette party.0Add a comment
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Much of writing my thesis has been to unravel the patriarchal pseudoscience from compelling evidence that speaketh otherwise. Much later down the track, after I have left my focus on literature (which doesn’t actually suit me, in the sense of the narrow disciplinary requirements), I will put together some of the evidence I have found.
The reptilian brain is neither “infantile” or “retro” in any definitive sense of these terms. The important point is to become aware of it and be able to use it in effective ways, rather than have it use you.
The question of whether the grammatical subject is actually the Cartesian subject is very interesting — one I am still thinking about. A valid rephrasing of the question might be: “Do those who have not been brought up under cultural circumstances that condition one to embrace Cartesian dualism (or idealism) experience “I” in the same way as those who have been so conditioned?” I am inclined to think they do not, and I wrote something about it here.
I think the whole genre of magical realism (or “shamanic realism”) challenges this notion of the Cartesian subject as being the same as the grammatical subject always. The “magical” aspect of magical realism are from the lizard brain. But, whereas these aspects seem gratuitous, outlandish, extraneous, or whatever, to a Cartesian-conditioned mind, my feeling is that they simply convey another aspect of the “I” to those whose minds have been differently conditioned.
The reptilian brain is not the id, though. The id may be SOME of the energy — desire for pleasure and enjoyment in the immediacy — that radiates from the lizard brain. But the lizard brain is broader than this — it is the will to survival, but not only that, it is the blueprint, the general neurological schemata for survival under extreme conditions. In other words, unlike the “id” (a mere force) it has “intelligence”.
I think that shamanistic seeing, to succeed, requires opening up as wide a gap as possible between the lizard brain “self” and the ego. This way one develops a broad soul, which facilitates seeing more than others do. To conflate the self with the ego, as some do, is normal, but it is not a recipe for vision or understanding of very much. To conflate the self with the superego, on the other hand, is a recipe for pathology. In this third case, one develops a very rigid character structure that adapts itself to nothing, and can perceive nothing at all, apart from its own imperatives, which act like a pressure on the mind and body. That is the opposite of shamanism, which opens up a channel of communication between the self and ego, and often minimises the effect of superego, to boot.
To summarise my suspicions, then: Under the conditions of industrial modernisation, the grammatical "I" is that which speaks. It is the Cartesian subject, and that alone. But this is not necessarily so under conditions lived closer to Nature. In that second case, both the egoistic "I" and the R-complex "self" may combine to express a version of subjectivity that is not limited by instrumental reason but ranges more broadly through the different levels of the mind, and nonetheless conveys important information about the subject to himself (and to others).0Add a comment
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I maintain that the particular sub-culture of Rhodesian culture in which I was brought up was not a mind-body dualistic culture. I believe my peers and I were rather more Africanised than would enable them to easily conform to this standardised Western mode of perceiving and reacting to things. In my own case, mind-body dualism has been like a foreign language of the emotions, that sometimes makes sense (but only in a peculiar kind of way) and most of the time doesn't.
The difficulties of relating to those who have an entirely different emotional outlook than one's own can be seen in some ways as akin to a game of "battleships". The approach to understanding the cultural other may not be warlike in all respects. Rather, what is required is good will, persistence and ongoing determination, to break through certain barriers of social conditioning, in order to see the other's perspectives. Even then, one may catch a glimpse of such perspectives maybe just a bit. Incredulity of the type that inwardly proclaims, "Well aren't you white in skin colour, and therefore don't you surely know exactly how we think!!" is the least helpful attitude to work with, when good communication is the desired outcome.
Rather, the game of battleships must continue with patience and rigour: "Did I manage to understand you, or did I perhaps entirely miss the point?"
In the actual game of battleships, one tries to target the location of the other party's ships or submarines, by trying random co-ordinates at first, and then honing one's guesses based on whether one has made a "strike" or missed. Despite the metaphor of battling, it is in fact a game of the mind. Nothing is achieved by getting het up or distressed. Rather, cool persistence wins the day.
When one's emotional orientation towards the world is very different from those around you, the onus is on you (not them) to communicate effectively, by directing one's missives not into thin air (although such randomness in direction will be necessary in the first instances of the game). Rather, one must make one's estimations based on previous experience as well as seeking to develop various modes of predictive logic. In this, the content of the other's thoughts are not so useful, for this content is precisely what can be misleading if one over-identifies with it, because one thinks one recognises in it common mental states. First lesson in battleship warfare is that the very structure of your mind and his mind are not the same, no matter how similar are the surface tropes of meaning. That sense of seeming to hold something in common is only the heart's desire to hold things in common, speaking forth. It's wishful thinking and the source of a delusion.
It is the deeper structures of the other's mind that one must aim to know if one is truly to understand him. Attention to surface content only betrays this more complex ambition.
Why does he respond to acknowledgement of having changed as if this implied personal weakness? What makes him view verbalised self-awareness as a sign of being abject? How does it come about that he fears strong emotional states, and moreover sees them only ever as coming from outside of him, from others "out there" and never from within, from his own being? What makes him believe in the possibility of implicit knowledge of the other, when he has barely engaged in any detailed conversation with them, and only has cursory information to go on? Why does he persist in believing that a quintessential moral stance is best expressed by not sticking out his own neck (either on behalf of himself, or on behalf of others)? What makes him view the person of the other gender as being extremely alien from him, and from his own consciousness, to the point that he finds it difficult even to relate casually, in a relaxed manner? Above all, why does he attribute states of mind that correspond to 'guilt' and 'sin' to the other party, when there isn't any of that in the subjective state of mind of the other?
My answers to date point to a state of being where the mind and the body do not work in cooperative accordance, but are extremely divided. The structure of the mind of the other seems to have revealed itself, and perhaps this implies that my battleships game has now been won.0Add a comment
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I refer to the following video, in which Zizek remarks about Cartesianism, as that which had made "The West" great:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GD69Cc20rw
I hold that what Zizek perceives as an actuality of Cartesianism (a present benefit)is still only a potential benefit.
Zizek's blindspot concerns gender -- a blindspot that is perfectly logical, given his intellectual debt to Lacan, who tends to naturalise gender categories by making them out to be a product of "the psyche" rather than a product of "the social".
Zizek doesn't sufficiently understand the politics of gender and the way it is currently being played out. Elsewhere, he chastises Judith Butler for her resounding emphasis on the issue of gender, as if such a focus rightfully belonged only to the sidelines of real revolutionary consciousness. So the patriarch effectively goes "tut, tut, tut," and merely confirms his patriarchal bias by his estimation of what really holds value -- (Hint: it is not a woman's perspective on the matter.)
In his general outlook, Zizek is not feminist, but Hegelian. He puts his faith in Modernity to lead us forwards. Modernity, with its mind-body dualism does not actually liberate us effectively enough from the shackles of gender, however, as Lacan's own theorising adequately demonstrates. (Lacan's views on gender are more philosophically idealist than materialist, upholding the notion of gender positions rather than core gender identities -- a nod to the structuralist approach of early 20th Century French anthopological theory. Yet, gender essentialism is also reinstated in Lacan's non-traditionalist approach to the extent that the structuralist 'subject' does not have the right (ie. avenues) to appeal against their structural position if he or she feels themselves to have been incorrectly cast.)
According to my quick analysis of Lacanian theory above, Lacan's Cartesianism certainly does not liberate us from patriarchal oppression. It may seem to liberate us from material (ie. biological) determinism, but it stops short.
On the basis of Cartesianism, then, we only half-way free from gender essentialism. The sense of a biological determinism to gender may be, and often is, de-emphasised by virtue of the instigation of a system of mind-body dualism. Yet patriarchal values themselves do not go away, with this conceptual severence of the mind from the body. Rather, patriarchal values themselves become more idealised, harder to pin down with any concrete formulation.
This enables patriarchy systems to survive and flourish. For patriarchy, as an institution, has effectively spiritualised itself. It has conceptually detached itself from anything concrete, tangible, or substantial in terms of action or behaviour. Instead, it has taken on an ethereal and transcendental identity -- a value system that is located everywhere, but in no particular individual, like the antiquated idea of God, himself.
So it is that, exploiting this conceptual divorce from a need to prove his masculinity in terms of actual actions, a male these days may proclaim himself supremely masculine because he has (via historical means) inherited the rhetorical power of patriarchy to put the little woman in her place. His own character may be in concrete fact, no more actualisably masculine than the character of the one that he upbraids. He is after all, thoroughly "Modernised", and no traditional patriarch himself. But he is, for all that, not above using the rhetoric of traditional patriarchy to put her in her place.
That right is still his, by virtue of his structurally defined "subject position".
And she still has no right to appeal.3View comments
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I just had a short nap, (late to bed last night), and woke up reflecting more on the nature of the lizard brain. I think the whole key is that it tends towards pathology when it functions alone, but towards creativity when harnessed by the higher mind's faculties.
One thing I am speculating about (and there are good theoretical reasons for this) is that the lizard brain has to do with envisioning wholeness. In fact, this may be behind its projective mechanism. It unreasoningly fills in the gaps that are missing with empirical evidence -- especially in terms of that hoary chestnut issue of "identity". So where as we, as human beings, do not embody anything like an internally consistent or even self-consistent identity, a lot of the time, lizard brain, with its primitive (but also "artistic") consciousness posits that we do.
Lizard brain sees wholeness, then, where none empirically exists -- and it is just a step away, in that case, from positing "essences".
You can imagine, therefore, what it means when lizard brain becomes unhinged from the higher mind -- as is sometimes inclined to happen, especially with people, or even whole communities, under stress.
In other words, essences are projected, and imagined to pertain to individuals or groups "out there" when particular communities are under stress. This is a case of seeing self-consistency in others (a kind of "wholeness" where there in fact isn't any). In fact, whole groups -- such as "women" or "[insert ethnicity here]" -- can be seen as sharing the same essence, according to this vision, making them into some kind of self-consistent whole.
So much for the pathological side of lizard brain. I insist, however, that it is very wrong (and also pathological) to try to divorce ourselves from a functioning part of our brains. It is difficult to realise that we must work alongside lizard brain, because we are often trained to think it terms of purity and impurity, and therefore in terms on excising whole putatively "negative" aspects of ourselves, when the proper path is towards integrating them.
It has suddenly struck me how the lizard brain types get you sucked in to playing their game and conforming to their wishes. They employ your own lizard brain against you, in its artistic (non-pathological) drives to see them (the pathological lizard brain types) as 'a whole'. Wanting to perceive the other in this way (as a whole being) is not only creative and generous, but also has to do with our will to power, for we desire to "see" the other in order to enjoy him, but also to conquer him through our knowledge. We desire this form of relating (non-pathologically) because it is pleasurable.
But this is how the pathological lizard brains get us sucked in. I think that deep down, they know that they are not a whole, and that they can never be a whole person (in the different sense of being satisfied with their own inner resources, as the basis for an inward sense of identity, that doesn't rely upon others to "make it complete/true"). Somehow they manage to get us to engage with them -- with our idea of them -- by being disruptive, and by drawing attention to themselves. And somehow by giving them our attention, we create an image of their wholeness in our minds that the pathological ones can enjoy and feel gratified with. (Well, we all do this to some degree -- try to live our lives through the perceptions of others -- but I am talking about cases where people are extremely disruptive, and why that is.)
There are obviously some loose ends to all of this, for instance, concerning why the pathological ones cannot generate their own satisfying sense of wholeness, since they rely so strongly on the lizard brain for everything. It seems that what they lack is an emotional life that is in any way nourishing.0Add a comment
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According to Wilfred Bion, the paranoid-schizoid position (originally prominent as infantile consciousness) is the very source of creativity. Creativity in adults involves a movement of consciousness between PS<--> D (where "D" signifies the 'depressive position' – ie. the mature state of rational, adult consciousness, in which one recognises that others are also real, and that one must therefore accommodate them). PS<-->D describes the very process of creativity itself. One can strongly hypothesise that this movement implies a shifting emphasis between lizard brain consciousness and the consciousness of the higher mind. In creative persons the result of this shift is to weave the two components of mental activity together to produce Art. Lizard brain provides a "magical thinking" element, which is a component of creativity. Yet this means nothing except perhaps "madness" unless the higher brain, in turn, interprets the creative impulses and gives them recognisable meaning.0
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Why Nietzsche's shamanism is superficial: patriarchal values and ideas prevent one from sinking deeply into the unconscious, because patriarchal values are identified with ego, which keep one buoyant, perhaps too much so.
Likewise, Freud's version of patriarchal shamanism is not as deep, nor does it allow for the possibilities of going as deeply into the unconscious as shamanism that is not already patriarchal identified does. Social hierarchy is built into the Freudian system — it is only via your therapist and his priestly mediation that you can eventually become well. It employs an understanding of the shamanistic structure of psychology but only in a superficial way, so as not to disrupt things as they are.
Undiluted shamanism, by contrast, permits the subject to go much more deeply into the unconscious, and without the hierarchically based mediation of a Judeo-Christian priestly figure. Shaman masters who over-assist another in finding her initiation follow this theologically alien (and alienating) model. Properly, one needs just enough help to find one's own way and nothing more. Without priestly mediation (which is actually a fence around the consciousness, guarding against too much experience and knowledge) one is able to catch sight of visions that would otherwise be socially prohibited.
Freudianism deploys the shamanistic method, only at a more superficial level. One has to sink to the depths of the unconscious to gain the knowledge that would unite the conscious mind (ego) with the unconscious. In Freudianism, it is not the subject/client himself who sinks into the unconscious, so much as it is the therapist who encourages some of the unconscious to come to the surface, and then interprets it. So, in a way it is a safer version of shamanism, although in another way it barely touches the surface of shamanistic consciousness and knowledge.
What is in common is a certain recognition of the psychological structure of shamanism. A well-adjusted ego will be one that has become aware of more of the contents of the unconscious, so that it will have processed this material and become one with it. This is, in Freudian terms, a “strong” ego.
The process of shamanism requires the ability to relax and let go of ego control — just as in Freudianism, the process of lying on the couch and freely associating causes one to let go of the control of ego. This is the only way to reach the unconscious, through temporarily making the ego small.
So it is that in shamanism there one confronts death through diminishing the ego. But this experience is only temporary. The SCUBA diver sinks to the depths for a while, and looks around. Then, it is necessary to rise to the surface again.
The result of such “voyaging” is that one discovers new material about one’s identity. At this point a strong ego is needed again, at least strong enough to assimilate this new material to make itself more robust. A failure to assimilate the material because one doesn’t like what one sees is actually a failure of ego to come to terms with harsh aspects of reality. Only a strong ego can digest the more negative aspects of life and assimilate them into a stronger constitution -- one that takes in more of reality.0Add a comment
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There are different levels of interpretation built-in to an esoteric text like Nietzsche's. The karmic notion of eternal recurrence is one level of interpretation, but I think that shamanistic/affirmative idea is a deeper level. Really, you can lose your complexes through shamanistic regression. Then, there is no longer any error to be corrected. You and your unconscious are one. You are free.
I'm sure few people can gain a genuine recapitulation through "facing death". Those who can say it are shamans. But paradoxically, they have had to pay for their freedom with their wounding. I am speaking in a neuropsychological sense. This is far from mysticism. Those who have some psychological wounding (a radical change in one's society might do it to you, or certain forms of oppression/bullying) can often learn very quickly about the ways their unconscious mind functions. Their unconscious mind and their conscious mind are one.
This is hardly true for most, and the lower one's spiritual status is, the less one will have access to the deeper parts of one's own mind. One can imagine the lowest on the ladder of the spiritual hierarchy having no idea what their unconscious is actually doing or what it wants -- hence back-biting and self-delusion, along with a general lack of courage in facing things directly: one simply cannot face that which one does not have the courage to know.
What they sometimes attain through their suffering is actually shamanistic knowledge. As noted, the shamanistic formula is one of "facing death". Those who can face their own annihilation (represented as shamanic regression and "ego death") will be healed. By "ego death" one should not understand the demise of individualism. In fact, the opposite is true, Since "ego" has to do with social operations and concern with how others see one, temporary ego death liberates the true self. Nonetheless, one only seeks this kind of healing when life itself has put one under extreme duress. One would rather not do it. But if one has received an extreme psychological wound, one will often be able to regress to a very early level, and thus get to the origins of one's own identity in such a way that one can heal oneself. For one to have the courage to go to this level is really rare, very rare.
So, that is the most esoteric interpretation of the eternal recurrence. At the same time, the karmic interpretation will be one true for many people. Perhaps we can see a spiritual hierarchy forming on the basis of how one interprets this puzzle of the eternal recurrence? Those who have healed themselves are truly free, but they are the few. The rest, who fear to go to such extremes of facing death (and it is an anti-intuitive thing to do under most circumstances) will have a karmic interpretation of eternal recurrence. Others still will see it as a sign of misery and condemnation: as if freedom had been divinely prohibited, or heaven denied, due to the eternal recurrence of the same.
This particular interpretation of eternal misery is the most likely one to be made by people who are unable to help themselves through shamanic regeneration. I consider that it will also be the most common – or "commonsensical" view of what the eternal recurrence suggests, in the eyes of the many too many. It suggests everlasting misery, with no escape even "at the end" of life. That would indeed be the result to logically anticipate, if you cannot access your own internal resources to create yourself anew.
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Now, I can very clearly see how the logic of shamanism is interlinked. “Facing death” frees the ego from its social and ideological contraints, which enables it to recapitulate the past in such a way that one transcends not only one’s psychological limitations (eg. the unconscious habit of deference to authority, which would have been hard to resist as a child in the thrall of adults), but one also gets to make oneself anew, by accessing the lava-like heat and creative power of the “lizard brain”. Furthermore, by retracing one’s early developmental processes, but now with a more mature mind, one is able to understand that evasive notion of “human nature” so much better. Like I said, one particularly understands the little, unconscious deferential tendencies one has developed, as so one overcomes them by virtue of seeing more clearly the damage they do. So the whole of shamanism has a simple internal logic involving:
1. gaining internal freedom by facing death
2. “recapitulation” — involving the dissolution of weak aspects of the character structure and regeneration along stronger lines.
3. Controlled regression and return from that state gives one knowledge of the very structure of the self as well as how human identity in general is formed.
These are all logically (specifically, psychologically) interlinked, and straightforward.1View comments
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