Nietzsche -- shaman-master

When one looks at the underlying principle that guides the writing of Nietzsche, his concern is precisely that of Carlos Castaneda's shaman-master, don Juan, in that he is keen to establish appropriate methods to recover an authentic subjectivity. In this sense of turning away from outward objective forms and turning inwards and in the sense of making his ethics dependent upon a reckoning with one's inner life, Nietzsche's writing is extremely shamanistic. This is to address Nietzsche's basic principle and to identify it as being quintessentially shamanistic.

It is advisable and useful to separate this basic principle of shamanism itself from the psychological principles and secondary discoveries of Nietzsche, the shaman.

The discovery and enhancement of subjectivity is shamanistic -- however, the actual contents of subjectivity and the means for enhancing subjectivity belong to the particular shaman-master. Not all shaman-masters are the same. Rather, each have different priorities, different sets of values and different insights.

The reason why it is necessary to separate the act of being a shaman from the teaching of any particular shaman-master is that failing to do so means that one does not fully integrate the lessons of subjectivity -- that is, one remains reliant on the master and does not fully develop a subjectivity of one's own. Nietzsche himself, though his character Zarathustra, warns against this common psychological trap:

Verily, I advise you: depart from me, and guard yourselves against Zarathustra! And better still: be ashamed of him! Perhaps he hath deceived you. The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies, but also to hate his friends. One requiteth a teacher badly if one remain merely a student. And why will ye not pluck at my wreath? Ye venerate me; but what if your veneration should some day collapse? Take heed lest a statue crush you! Ye say, ye believe in Zarathustra? But of what account is Zarathustra! Ye are my believers: but of what account are all believers! Ye had not yet sought yourselves: then did ye find me. So do all believers; therefore all belief is of so little account. Now do I bid you lose me and find yourselves; and only when ye have all denied me, will I return unto you.

It's the principle of putting the development of subjective knowledge ahead of almost everything else that defines shamanistic experience as compared to other forms of religious experience.

Whereas Christianity holds that one must maintain a consistent position of reverence in relation to its holy book, the Bible, shamanism would consider such a position to be in opposition to its primary goals and purposes which is to find one's own way through life by developing subjective self-knowledge.

For this purpose, Zarathustra advises us to depart from him.