further notes on shamanism

1. the shaman thrives during a time of intense stress and transformation

SEE: James M. Glass, "The Philosopher and the Shaman: The Political Vision as Incantation," Political Theory, Vol. 2, No. 2 (May, 1974), pp. 181-196



2 From what I have so far determined, Marechera's shamanistic knowledge of the pre-Oedipal field is specifically knowledge of how power relations function to give us negative forms of identity (that is, not based on conscious choice) within organisations (such as general social, political or bureaucratic organisations). Such identities function RELATIONALLY, as parts of the political whole.


3. Nietzsche speaks of his relationship with Dionysus in terms of sacrifice and self-transformation -- and there is no question in my mind that the relationship he speaks of is in the pattern of shamanism (he even references his interaction with 'spirits' later in this same passage):


the genius of the heart, from contact with which every
one goes away richer; not favoured or surprised, not as though
gratified and oppressed by the good things of others; but richer
in himself, newer than before, broken up, blown upon, and sounded
by a thawing wind; more uncertain, perhaps, more delicate, more
fragile, more bruised, but full of hopes which as yet lack names,
full of a new will and current, full of a new ill-will and
counter-current . . . but what am I doing, my friends? Of whom am
I talking to you? Have I forgotten myself so far that I have not
even told you his name? Unless it be that you have already
divined of your own accord who this questionable God and spirit
is, that wishes to be PRAISED in such a manner? For, as it
happens to every one who from childhood onward has always been on
his legs, and in foreign lands, I have also encountered on my
path many strange and dangerous spirits; above all, however, and
again and again, the one of whom I have just spoken: in fact, no
less a personage than the God DIONYSUS, the great equivocator and
tempter, to whom, as you know, I once offered in all secrecy and
reverence my first-fruits--the last, as it seems to me, who has
offered a SACRIFICE to him, for I have found no one who could
understand what I was then doing.

[SEE: Beyond Good and Evil]