shamanism and psychoanalysis: where they differ

It is important to distinguish my shamanistic paradigm from various schools of psychoanalysis or analytical psychology, despite drawing upon some of their perspectives.

In terms of the idea of splitting, as it is perceived within shamanism, my ideas are more Jungian than Kleinian (ie. Derived primarily from Sherry Salman's Jungian perspectives, and then from the post-Kleinian sociologist Isabel Menzies Lyth, and the feminist and post-Freudian theoretical perspectives of Judith Lewis Herman.) These theoreticians uphold the notion that splitting is not due to primeval envy but relates to conformity to systems of power, which may in their own rights already be pathological (Lyth) and to the external imposition of trauma, along with the desire to preserve a part of the mind that could retain faith in order to grow (Herman). Furthermore, Sherry Salman suggests that within the pre-Oedipal consciousness is a drive towards ontological wholeness.

According to Salman, while splitting and projective identification indicate in injury to identity (which is to say, to an inwards sense of wholeness), they are also the means by which the psyche heals itself, by an encounter with an object that can give the damaged psyche its completeness. I want to emphasize this proactive drive towards inner psychological wholeness as the model that shamanism inevitably employs. It is an optimistic paradigm, although I believe it a most logical and realistic one. It resonates with Nietzsche's notion that there is a sage behind the ego that judges the overall integrity of our actions, from a bodily perspective. My shamanistic paradigm also resonates with Bataille's notion (in "The Will to Chance") that the mystical basis of experience is in the seeking of wholeness.

My shamanistic paradigm stands one step removed from Lacan's approach, in general, since his theoretical platform of mind-body dualism exaggerates the practical division in the mind between having R-complex in executive control over the mind (in infancy) and having the neo-cortex in executive control. (This higher developmental level Lacan identifies with the capacity to use language, with identification with patriarchal values, and also, I would argue, with the necessity of using instrumental reason at the expense of other forms of knowing such as intuition. I would argue that the last two points that Lacan's theory stands for are purely cultural, and do not represent the universal human condition.) Lacan's mind-body dualistic approach does not allow that R-complex (in his and Kleinian terms, the state of mind that governs early childhood development) can still be active at an adult stage of life.

The shamanistic position I wish to uphold is that not only does R-complex continue to influence adult perceptions, especially concerning issues of politics and survival, but that traditional shamanism (as well as some Western, modern versions of it – Nietzsche and Bataille) seeks to restore a conscious and decidedly non-pathological intra-psychical connection between this earlier stage of consciousness and the higher faculties of mind. Shamanism, as I understand it, is nothing other than a recipe, a system of knowledge, that enables one to forge a bridge between two parts of the mind that are prone to becoming alienated, due to normal developmental processes, which lock off the realm of R-complex from the conscious mind, by means of repression. Those who temporarily thwart the ego and its systems of repression of the lower mind will find themselves in the company of R-complex, as a realm of creativity, will to power, and restored psychological wholeness.

Shamans access not a repressed "unconscious" (in the Freudian sense), but rather a complete neurological system in its own right. It is only in a culture where mind-body dualism strongly holds sway that a system of the "unconscious" develops to hold buried thoughts that are wholly negative. It is very likely that in some (non mind-body dualistic) cultures, the intra-psychical link between R-complex and the neo-cortex does not totally disappear during normal development.

Further cultural pressures would be needed to facilitate the complete division. Shamanism is a naturalistic approach to religion and ethics that requires us to gain access to the evolutionary evolved knowledge contained in the deeper parts of the neurological structures (which is Nietzsche was attempting) and not to eschew such access as "pathological". The experiment that both Nietzsche and Bataille were attempting by pushing forward a shamanistic perspective was to allow a naturalistic system of ethics to prevail, whereby each person would learn to master their own inner sources of wisdom and to stand or fall on these terms alone.

***

ALSO: "FACING DEATH" is the formula for overcoming the basis for the ego's repression of a more direct form of knowledge. Ego represses in order to conform to expectations from society. It represses out of fear of ostracism (death).

NOTE: Unlike those of the Kleinian schools, Jungians don't use the term, "pre-Oedipal" to imply evil or pathology in an unambiguous way.  Jungians see this putative early childhood level of consciousness as being simply different from the rational, adult norm.  It's a realm of transformation and mystical consciousness.  We all have components of that  in us; the ability to see ourselves as part of life's  great "oneness".