I've stated often enough before that intellectual shamanism may appear to use the same vocabulary, at times, as those who inhabit a Judeo-Christian framework, but nonetheless our meanings are far from being the same.
DIFFERING WORLD VIEWS
Let me start by stating the different ways of viewing the world, that pertain to these paradigms.
In the Judeo-Christian view, the world was created once and for all by a primeval entity -- the Judeo-Christian God. Since reality has already been created, there is no more creative work to be done. The very best one can do is to operate realistically within the framework that divine providence has created. There remains, of course, the possibility of acting "unrealistically" within the world that the deity has formed. Any unrealistic behaviour is sinful and is deemed to be destructive of the pre-established divine order. Irrationality is definitely an offence against the deity and against what has been created.
This describes the world view that is most prevalent today. Underlining it is the assumption that conformity to pre-established systems is necessary in order to prove oneself moral, realistic and not crazy.
By strong contrast, the shamanistic system I have uncovered is not founded on a myth of divine creation. Rather, according to intellectual shamanism, the world is not yet fully created. Some aspects of the world have clearly come into being, but other aspects are still in the process of being born. Still other aspects are incubating and waiting. They may never come into being -- or, they might. Their chance of survival depends on the creativity, insights and will power of the people presently existing.
DIFFERENT CONCEPTS OF HEALING
When one speaks of healing in contemporary culture, one often inadvertently invokes notions of falling short of a particular standard of well-being from the outset. In terms of the Judeo-Christian paradigm, the Lord made the world perfect and then humans fell from grace, into sin. "Healing" is therefore the work of the sinner, the one who has fallen short of normality and wishes to atone for that. In Western culture, the term, "healing", is also often invoked by the New Age flake, who feels out of touch with nature and is trying to get back some sense of the organic nature of reality.
Intellectual shamanism, by contrast, does not see that we humans do anything else other than following an inevitable trajectory that involves destruction and healing. Our cells die and the body renews them. The very ability to develop greater physical strength is premised on the tearing of our muscle fiber, which achieves greater strength every time it is destroyed. This is not to imply a metaphysical formula, whereby one can be assured, "What doesn't kill me [necessarily] makes me stronger." In some cases, one weakens and dies. This is also an inevitable part of human experience. To realize when to fight and when to yield is shamanistic wisdom. Both attitudes are neutral and neither of them imply original sin.
A-THEISM VERSUS THEISM
It is necessary to say just whom we regard as our antagonists: theologians and all who have any theological blood in their veins—this is our whole philosophy.... One must have faced that menace at close hand, better still, one must have had experience of it directly and almost succumbed to it, to realize that it is not to be taken lightly (—the alleged free-thinking of our naturalists and physiologists seems to me to be a joke—they have no passion about such things; they have not suffered—). This poisoning goes a great deal further than most people think: I find the arrogant habit of the theologian among all who regard themselves as “idealists”—among all who, by virtue of a higher point of departure, claim a right to rise above reality, and to look upon it with suspicion.... The idealist, like the ecclesiastic, carries all sorts of lofty concepts in his hand (—and not only in his hand!); he launches them with benevolent contempt against “understanding,” “the senses,” “honor,” “good living,” “science”; he sees such things as beneath him, as pernicious and seductive forces, on which “the soul” soars as a pure thing-in-itself—as if humility, chastity, poverty, in a word, holiness, had not already done much more damage to life than all imaginable horrors and vices.... The pure soul is a pure lie.... So long as the priest, that professional denier, calumniator and poisoner of life, is accepted as a higher variety of man, there can be no answer to the question, What is truth? Truth has already been stood on its head when the obvious attorney of mere emptiness is mistaken for its representative....[Nietzsche]
DIFFERING WORLD VIEWS
Let me start by stating the different ways of viewing the world, that pertain to these paradigms.
In the Judeo-Christian view, the world was created once and for all by a primeval entity -- the Judeo-Christian God. Since reality has already been created, there is no more creative work to be done. The very best one can do is to operate realistically within the framework that divine providence has created. There remains, of course, the possibility of acting "unrealistically" within the world that the deity has formed. Any unrealistic behaviour is sinful and is deemed to be destructive of the pre-established divine order. Irrationality is definitely an offence against the deity and against what has been created.
This describes the world view that is most prevalent today. Underlining it is the assumption that conformity to pre-established systems is necessary in order to prove oneself moral, realistic and not crazy.
By strong contrast, the shamanistic system I have uncovered is not founded on a myth of divine creation. Rather, according to intellectual shamanism, the world is not yet fully created. Some aspects of the world have clearly come into being, but other aspects are still in the process of being born. Still other aspects are incubating and waiting. They may never come into being -- or, they might. Their chance of survival depends on the creativity, insights and will power of the people presently existing.
DIFFERENT CONCEPTS OF HEALING
When one speaks of healing in contemporary culture, one often inadvertently invokes notions of falling short of a particular standard of well-being from the outset. In terms of the Judeo-Christian paradigm, the Lord made the world perfect and then humans fell from grace, into sin. "Healing" is therefore the work of the sinner, the one who has fallen short of normality and wishes to atone for that. In Western culture, the term, "healing", is also often invoked by the New Age flake, who feels out of touch with nature and is trying to get back some sense of the organic nature of reality.
Intellectual shamanism, by contrast, does not see that we humans do anything else other than following an inevitable trajectory that involves destruction and healing. Our cells die and the body renews them. The very ability to develop greater physical strength is premised on the tearing of our muscle fiber, which achieves greater strength every time it is destroyed. This is not to imply a metaphysical formula, whereby one can be assured, "What doesn't kill me [necessarily] makes me stronger." In some cases, one weakens and dies. This is also an inevitable part of human experience. To realize when to fight and when to yield is shamanistic wisdom. Both attitudes are neutral and neither of them imply original sin.
A-THEISM VERSUS THEISM
It is necessary to say just whom we regard as our antagonists: theologians and all who have any theological blood in their veins—this is our whole philosophy.... One must have faced that menace at close hand, better still, one must have had experience of it directly and almost succumbed to it, to realize that it is not to be taken lightly (—the alleged free-thinking of our naturalists and physiologists seems to me to be a joke—they have no passion about such things; they have not suffered—). This poisoning goes a great deal further than most people think: I find the arrogant habit of the theologian among all who regard themselves as “idealists”—among all who, by virtue of a higher point of departure, claim a right to rise above reality, and to look upon it with suspicion.... The idealist, like the ecclesiastic, carries all sorts of lofty concepts in his hand (—and not only in his hand!); he launches them with benevolent contempt against “understanding,” “the senses,” “honor,” “good living,” “science”; he sees such things as beneath him, as pernicious and seductive forces, on which “the soul” soars as a pure thing-in-itself—as if humility, chastity, poverty, in a word, holiness, had not already done much more damage to life than all imaginable horrors and vices.... The pure soul is a pure lie.... So long as the priest, that professional denier, calumniator and poisoner of life, is accepted as a higher variety of man, there can be no answer to the question, What is truth? Truth has already been stood on its head when the obvious attorney of mere emptiness is mistaken for its representative....[Nietzsche]
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