The capacity for intellectual shamanism is based on having superfluous energy to spend on exploring inner, psychological dimensions. The prerequisite for engagement puts intellectual shamanism at odds with many, perhaps most, other philosophies of life that demand one's time and commitment in other ways. Even holding other implicit philosophies, such as a prevalent one of our age -- biological determinism -- moves one several steps away from understanding how intellectual shamanism is expressed. Those whose purpose in life is sex and reproduction will not find anything of value in this paradigm.
Somebody whose life is guided and determined by biological imperatives would experience intellectual shamanism as only threatening to take them away from their allotted tasks. A typical misunderstanding I have found in those who read Nietzsche is in the idea that one can use one's reading as a means to gain the kind of "wisdom" that would enable one to fully express one's innate biological urges. Yet, the desire to move in a direction that fulfills one's needs as a creature of one's biology is exactly opposed to the desire to further one's knowledge about subjectivity and inner worlds. To follow a biological deterministic path requires a calm and yielding disposition. Any emotion or sensation that is not in this vein is a threat to one's determined destiny.
By contrast, with regard to shamanism a lot of actions may be done and a lot of words spent, which have no biological purpose whatsoever. The meaning of looking into one's inner worlds is not to lament anything, but simply to look around at one's leisure. There is nothing to win or lose here, in terms of any sense of necessary or inevitable destinies. One has all the time in the world to waste and no purpose to achieve except that intrinsic to looking. One can scream and shout all one likes. This is actually encouraged.
At the same time, those in a hurry to take things in the opposite direction will, of course, not find anything here.
Somebody whose life is guided and determined by biological imperatives would experience intellectual shamanism as only threatening to take them away from their allotted tasks. A typical misunderstanding I have found in those who read Nietzsche is in the idea that one can use one's reading as a means to gain the kind of "wisdom" that would enable one to fully express one's innate biological urges. Yet, the desire to move in a direction that fulfills one's needs as a creature of one's biology is exactly opposed to the desire to further one's knowledge about subjectivity and inner worlds. To follow a biological deterministic path requires a calm and yielding disposition. Any emotion or sensation that is not in this vein is a threat to one's determined destiny.
By contrast, with regard to shamanism a lot of actions may be done and a lot of words spent, which have no biological purpose whatsoever. The meaning of looking into one's inner worlds is not to lament anything, but simply to look around at one's leisure. There is nothing to win or lose here, in terms of any sense of necessary or inevitable destinies. One has all the time in the world to waste and no purpose to achieve except that intrinsic to looking. One can scream and shout all one likes. This is actually encouraged.
At the same time, those in a hurry to take things in the opposite direction will, of course, not find anything here.
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