The "Death Instinct" and shamanism

I had cause to revisit my knowledge of the so-called "death instinct" after reading the following article.

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Herein, a very beautiful ape expounds:

The life instincts are those that deal with survival, reproduction, pleasure—in other words, instincts that are crucial for sustaining a person’s life, as well as the continuation of the species: thirst, hunger, pain avoidance, love, human interaction and other prosocial actions.
You follow?
But eventually Freud determined that human behavior couldn’t be explained by life instincts alone—and introduced his theory of death instincts, or death drive, or Thanatos.
Freud posited that “the goal of all life is death”, concluding that humans hold an unconscious desire to die—and that self-destructive behavior is an expression of the energy created by the death instincts.
According to this theory, then, if you are not a self-destructive person, your death wishes are under control because they overridden by healthier life instincts.

I shall both add and subtract from this formulation on the basis of my shamanistic understanding.

The "death instinct" is not a self-destructive drive that kicks in automagically in the same ways cells are biologically programmed to die.   Instead the death instinct is the underside of the life instinct, and its constant monitor and guarantor.  The death instinct makes sure the life instinct is on-track, or if not, it withdraws its support for whatever you are doing and forces you to reformulate your goals:

Even in your folly and despising ye each serve your Self, ye despisers of the body. I tell you, your very Self wanteth to die, and turneth away from life.
 No longer can your Self do that which it desireth most:- create beyond itself.
That is what it desireth most; that is all its fervour. But it is now too late to do so:- so your Self wisheth to succumb, ye despisers of the body.
 To succumb- so wisheth your Self; and therefore have ye become despisers of the body. For ye can no longer create beyond yourselves. And therefore are ye now angry with life and with the earth. (Nietzsche, Zarathustra)

Nietzsche speaks of those who have succumbed to the death instinct, because they have embraced a lie about the nature of reality.   They think reality is spiritual and not physical, and therefore the death instinct has  taken charge and is forcing them to either rethink their proposition or to get out of life altogether.

As I have outlined via my interpretation, the death instinct serves the life instinct.   These are not two distinct instincts that could gain the upper hand. The reality is close to Taoism and far removed from Manichean formulations.

That the death instinct is always in service of the life instinct is very good.  Wilhelm Reich, by the way, also noticed that when one does not believe in oneself enough, one sacrifices oneself to those whom one more easily believes in.  This is the death instinct at work, functioning as an evolutionary principle, and removing those who don't believe in themselves so that they do not clutter the scenery.

Why does one not believe in oneself? Because one is on the wrong track, because one has turned against what is ecstatic, vital and good about life, and has adopted negative formulations.

The intervention of the death instinct is not supposed to be final, except in the worst of cases. Mostly, it is just death tapping you on the shoulder, telling you that you have gone off-track.  It may be difficult to figure out where one has erred.  When I received my warning from death, I was in a mode of extreme conformity and emotional repression.  That's when death alerted me that I had to change my ways. I've since done so, and nothing has been the same since.  All my relationships are extremely positive.

Shamanistic death and regeneration works in the same way. One has to face death in order to learn where or how one might have strayed from life's purposes.  Once one has discovered this, one can get back on track. Death no longer has its hold, and Eros (the life instinct) takes over.