What shamanistic systems do that moralistic systems do not is to put you into a relationship with yourself. Moralistic systems are actually designed to avoid this, since they are constructed in order to prevent you from succumbing to harm/danger. However, one cannot deeply know anything without free experimentation. In particular, one cannot know the limits of anything, without experiencing some degree of harm. So, morality, which seeks to save us from harm, is always in danger of doing us ongoing harm by denying us self-knowledge.
http://unsanesafe.blogspot.com/2011/05/shamanistic-initiation-what-it-does-and.html
12 comments:
What about harm done to others? Is there anything in shamanism that provides a reason not to hurt other people?
Is there anything in the weather that provides a reason not to hurt others? How about is there anything in the stock exchange that provides such a reason?
Why does everything need to be turned into a system of morality?
Or do you need such a system to dominate you, to tell you hurting others is wrong?
So the Gukurahundi was fine.
If you think that hurting others is fine, then yes. But you seem to have a reading comprehension problem.
Don't get irrational now.
Shamanism is about learning more concerning the irrational sides of human nature. You would be surprised, perhaps, to know that the injunction, "Don't be irrational now" is itself extremely irrational, as this way of addressing me shuts down communication and makes out that what there is to know is already known by you. (After all you are drawing your own rather arbitrary lines concerning what your are, or are not, open to.)
If you already know everything there is to know about shamanism, why are you addressing me? Isn't your comment very irrational?
I originally asked you a genuine question. Your response dealt with your assumptions about what my assupmtions might be - i.e., "do you need a system", closing off communication. I was interested in your presentation of the relationship between shamanism and society, which does run on codes and systems, and when they break down or become twisted, the results can be bad. Mugabe's free of all moral systems, isn't he, but I would suspect that you do not see him as shamanic.
Are you now intimating that when you said, "Don't be irrational now" that this was not closing off communication?
How do you normally respond, when you give somebody an answer and they come back with "Don't be irrational now'?
What do you interpret it to mean in your particular experience?
As I said, your first answer was not an answer but a response to your own assumptions.
What were my assumptions? That Gukurahundi was fine? I don't understand.
Would you like to restate your question again? I can't guarantee that I can answer it in a way that you will understand, as even some professors do not understand this sort of intellectual shamanism. In fact, many go along with a Nazi version of Nietzsche, which sees him as being opposed to morality. In fact, he was opposed to the way that moral systems close off human experience and impose narrow systems of seeming rationality that serve particular power interests.
Assumption: "Why does everything need to be turned into a system of morality?" I am not looking for a system. What you call shamanism accords with experience of mine, and I am well aware that systems can be let go of. The question of the relationship between systemlessness and ethics interests me. The fact that Nietzsche's words have been so badly turned around shows that he did a poor job of expressing himself in this respect. I ask for your view, particularly in light of the fact that most people have not experienced shamanism.
You asked: "Is there anything in shamanism that provides a reason not to hurt people?"
It was hard to know what exactly you were asking, as you did not provide any kind of context or background for your question. I thought my answer was appropriate, because it indicated that there are many different aspects of culture that do not employ injunctions not to hurt people as part of their reason for being.
Now, you have gone further and given the reason for your original questions, which makes it easier for me to understand where the question was coming from.
I'm still not sure how to answer you, as you would be aware that Nietzsche went into a lot of depth and wrote extensively and yet people still interpreted him to imply that there is either moral behaviour or immoral behaviour and that he was advocating for the latter. So, to be clear, I don't think the issue that leads to obscuring of the facts about Nietzsche, or about shamanism, has to do with poor communication.
I do think that people, when they hear the word shamanism, expect it to be a religion and to do what religious systems do -- which is to provide moral guidance.
Nietzsche pointed out that a religious way of viewing the world is fast becoming antiquated, nevertheless it is the point of view that vast numbers of the population have become habituated to. It is very difficult for them to break from this perspective and to see the world in a new light.
Post a Comment