What is shamanistic knowledge?

What did you do to replicate a shamanic experience?

It's hard to describe it exactly, but it was through the process of writing my PhD. It's very difficult to describe, because I'd have to go into a lot of detail and the subject of my thesis and so on. Basically he was a Zimbabwean (black) writer, born into a civil war situation. Anyway, I argue that he was in the archetype of a shaman. But this is background for you -- and it will not suffice to explain fully, or even partially what I mean by 'shamanistic experience'.

The reason I say I had one is partly that my mind is totally different now, as compared to when I began the PhD. I actually have tried to get into my former mindset and seem unable to do so, apart from catching occasional glimpses of how I used to think. I think my whole psyche was dominated by an epistemological hunger that has since been assuaged -- and so much so that what seemed to me to be towering questions, rising above my head, now seem small and insignificant. It's like all the blanks have been filled in and I no longer need to take metaphysical stabs at anything (eg. through the systematising approach of formal logic or 'philosophy') because I already know how things stand.

I replicated the experience through immersing myself in a book called BLACK SUNLIGHT, which was about a number of things. It's very dense and allusive and its very difficult to say what it is about. Among other things is is about civil war and violent anarchism and political upheaval and psychological self destruction.

Ah, a comedy!

Hahaha. No. But with some very dark humour. Very. Actually I think shamanism lends itself to dark humour because it puts no faith in morality.

So, kind of a comedy, but definitely not.

I'd like to see a shaman do a standup comedy routine. Probably not the sort of thing they'd aim for, though.

BLACK SUNLIGHT is actually very metaphysically funny. Nietzsche, another shaman, can also be very funny -- especially about men and their putative "hardness". Shamanism is actually intrinsically funny -- but very unfunny if it is not taken in the spirit of shamanistic insight, which is a kind of nihilism.

Non-nihilists never laugh at shamanistic jokes.