Learning from experience and shamanistic practice

Jennifer Frances Armstrong

I wrote my thesis on shamanism and I think that most Westerners are not at all convinced by the insight and self-knowledge aspects of shamanism. I concluded, out of my struggles, that this side has to do with having the ability (or not) to detach from certain aspects of oneself and then reattach to those aspects. So, it is in effect like the analytical process of dividing something into different parts in order to understand it better.

It really ought not to be so confusing. On the most basic level, it is simply the capacity to learn from experience, which already implies some conceptual "doubling": i.e. being able to entertain two versions of yourself -- "how I was, then" AND "how I am, now."