llama :I have to admit I still don’t quite get what a shamanistic strategy is. I have read a fair amount of Jennifer Frances Armstrong writing (and always enjoy it). But don’t yet think I have a complete handle on the idea.
I really do think that you have to hit rock bottom in order to get it. You don't develop shamanistic strategies unless you have no other recourse and unless you are severely marginalised. And shamanistic strategies are the close cousin of pathology although they are arguably not pathological at all in that their intention is to produce redemption -- and in this they often succeed, if not in whole then at least in part.
In effect, shamanism is a strategic kind of madness -- a controlled madness. One allows oneself to go mad. One watches oneself go mad. But the madness is never out of control, but rather strategic, as a way of counteracting powerful political, military and other interests, that exert themselves directly on one's life.
The shamanistic "doubling" introduces a level of complexity into the psyche that makes one's behaviour hard to calculate and therefore one is less manageable and less able to be controlled by draconian authorities. One also gathers unusual perspectives in this way and it can open up the psyche to some very creative and innovative insights.
This article puts shamanism into fairly easy to understand, conventional terms:http://www.jstor.org/pss/3176383
But it is misleading, because shamanism is not a cultural category at all, but something that happens to the psyche, if the psyche is on the ropes and fighting for its life. It's a form of health obtained by the severely oppressed. It's not recognised as such, but that is what it is.
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