For "Nicki"

Why shamanism?

Oblique obviousness

I slightly sided with an American perspective, it seems, in the light that boring people seem to be anti-American, as I have noticed.  So I was the mother of Demi Moore.

 

I was in a hurry to participate in a major boxing match in a major city and somebody was driving me very fast indeed down a freeway ramp and then we would have to turn a corner at the end of the ramp. I knew the speed was going to be so fast we would shoot off the road, so finally I cautioned the driver to slow down.

 

Then I was in a huge school, where everybody knew which group and class they belonged to, except I, as it seemed.  I was late for the start and then waited in the central hall showing a lack of interest.  People seemed embarrassed for me that I didn’t have a group or a class, but they were covering up their own embarrassment, not mine.  I had no interest in joining any class, although standing in the middle of the hallway with some officious but polite people wasn’t my idea of fun either.  Eventually I was introduced to a Warren Beatty type character, of whom it was said, “He can speak two languages in one day.”  He was charged with finding where I originally belonged, which I already took as a nonsensical ideological construction.

 

But he seemed so weak and so genteel, and I had no other option than to stand in the hallway, so I had to acquiesce to go along with these Westerners and their strange ways.  It seemed to me they worshipped a superficial cleverness, and were trying to fit me in on the basis of what sort of cleverness they thought I had.  But in fact if they were really clever they would have been able to see immediately that I oriented myself around strength, rather than cleverness of some sort.

 

It should have been obvious to them.

Jennifer's background: Final 20 minutes

Intent | Clarissa's Blog

Intent | Clarissa's Blog





Sure, but I was expressing that it is logically unavoidable if one wants to be able to look into the motivations of people for criminal justice purposes.  One then ALSO needs to equip them with a range possible for a particular identity.  One has to delve into essentialist confabulations and come up with some projected parameters.

Intent | Clarissa's Blog

Intent | Clarissa's Blog:



'via Blog this'





"The American justice system is all about intent, motive, mind-reading. "



That is why abstracted (or constructed) notions of identity are so important to the American.  Because one cannot engage in adequate mind reading unless one also has an imaginative or ideological figuration of the range of behavior of certain types of human being. A "woman" of instance will necessarily behave differently from "a man", so we need to mind read her differently.

WHY SHAMANISM? -- part 1 (of six): introduction

"Why shamanism?" part 2. participation

"Why shamanism?" part 5 -the whole human

RADICAL SHAMANISM

RADICAL SHAMANISM 1 (OF 3 PARTS)

New Left political tactics & infantilism

Yawn!

"Why shamanism"? part 4 . the historical mediator.

Update on Ukraine | Clarissa's Blog

Update on Ukraine | Clarissa's Blog

“In the meanwhile, Obama still can’t even bring himself to refer to what Russia is doing as war and invasion. That’s all anybody is asking of him at this point, but even this small relief is not to be granted to Ukrainians.”

Do you ever notice that the spirit dominating Western sensibilities (apart from consumerism) is a distortion of the Eastern wisdom for bringing up a child, “See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.” But my Japanese acquaintances tell me that this is advice for child-rearing, to allow children a period of grace when they can mature in an environment that doesn’t disturb their growing minds with the question of evil doing.

In any case, you really can’t expect people from Western culture to actually do anything. There is something perverse about the way they are brought up. Sometimes even doing something small can make all the difference to somebody in a jam, but the Westerner is driven by a cultural motivation to not see evil.

Shamanic violence

Also to clarify something, there are two levels of violence.  One is the shamanic process itself and the other is the fact of how my identity was malformed by trying too hard to be good and perfect.  Always, there has been an attitude that I am someone on trial who can only be accepted conditionally, but needs to be constantly policed by others acting as moralists.  And also the same moralist in my head, but even more extremely so.  So to encounter in myself all the things that others fear and to make peace with them – and I do mean specifically my white, African identity – is to encounter myself in my most creative mode.  

The facts

 I come from is a highly authoritarian and Christian culture.  Because of the damage that this culture did to my ability to connect to the sensual aspects of myself WITHIN A SOCIAL CONTEXT, I developed a very high level of sensitivity to anything in the environment that would inhibit or deny my ability to make that necessary sensual connection within a social context.  That is how I came up with the discoveries I did.  Had I not been afflicted with the disease of a Rhodesian right wing character structure, I would not have been able to use myself as a sensitive measuring instrument to come up with the realizations I did.

But, having done so, I do know, without a doubt that Judeo-Christian culture is my visceral enemy.  I don’t mean I have to fight it.  I have learned to ignore it. 

But there is no point doubting what I know, which was that I had to rebuild my root system because of it, and then rebuild it after every attack.

Has this made me stronger?  Yes – in many instances.  For instance, if I still was imbued with a right wing culture, I would not have met the compatible personality I have found in Mike.  And there are all sorts of other benefits too.  But that was because I was forced to focus on my ROOT SYSTEM and develop and strengthen my connection to the sensual aspects of my being.  The attacks only made me aware of this need.  That is all.  They served no further purpose apart from that.

And of course the attacks will be continuous because I am thought to be from a criminal culture, so the moralists (Judeo-Christian types) will forever be down on my case for not being one of them.  And if I were to try to accommodate their demands, I could never satisfy those, because their demands are simply that I cease to exist.

opprobrium

I may welcome being labeled as abject, because I think it is something Bataille encouraged.  He thought that if we embraced everything that humanity typically considered “excrement”, we would actually strengthen our characters to the point that we were indifferent to social opprobrium .  That would give us strength to do almost anything at all – to be superhuman.  So there is a certain self-sacrifice (a sacrifice of a portion of our being that wants to be socially well-regarded) in the process of gaining more strength.  Of course this was exactly the same principle adopted by the Mau Mau in their efforts to overthrow colonial rule.  They engaged in self-debasing rituals to give them a feeling of indifference about killing other people.  So we can see clearly the advantages – and perhaps disadvantages – that accrue from gaining a sense of indifference to disgust.

Women who read Fifty Shades of Grey are more likely to have abusive partners and eating disorders, study finds - News - Books - The Independent

Women who read Fifty Shades of Grey are more likely to have abusive partners and eating disorders, study finds - News - Books - The Independent:



'via Blog this'

Shamanic vs Mutilated

I think it ought to be clear that I am not inclined, now more than ever, to be a philosophical activist.

Preaching to people about wholeness seems absurd when there are whole societies or even continents where people grow up naturally whole.

I have mentioned the Japanese as one example, but much of Africa also seems to embrace the continuity between the sensual self and the higher aspects of the self (which is all that wholeness means).

Therefore wholeness is not as rare as I had once suspected.

To preach to those who do not have this wholeness from childhood that there is a wholeness to be had seems folly.  After all, in fact, this wholeness may not be available to be had  BY THEM.

I think if the early childhood roots are not allowed to grow too deep and if one has already succumbed to very harsh pruning very early on, it may be difficult to be anything other than a very pruned and not particularly sensually engaged person (I refer again here to the motif of castration, which seems to imply enforced sensual disengagement).

Like dogs may have their tails docked and ears clipped – or indeed, undergo castration – some people have had the upbringing that makes them necessarily civilized and domesticated, but unable to access any sense of the primeval. 

I cannot stress enough that what we are talking about here has nothing to do with abstract formulations of strength and weakness.  The primeval is not “strength”.  What it is, is connectedness.  One may have very strong seeming characters that are castrated and very weak seeming ones that are entirely connected to the primeval.  In fact it can be a torture, in some instances, to be connected to the primeval, but not in others.  To have that connection is shamanic.  Not to have it is Mutilated.

Therefore there are two social and historical trends – the shamanic and the Mutilated.

One need not oppose the Mutilated trend, although one can warn against it.  It will attract those who are less connected to the primeval and it will tend to subvert the shamanic development of those who need to draw strength from roots.

This much I have found to be empirically true.

I have also found it to be true that one does not serve two masters, Mutilated and Shamanic, otherwise thy path does get corrupted.  The Mutilated path is via the embrace of non-wholeness.  Just in the same way as having sickle cell anemia protected the black slaves from succumbing to various diseases that a normal, healthy person would have succumbed to, so being Mutilated can protect one from all sorts of emotional contaminating diseases.    At the same time, it is a state of being that is already fundamentally mutilated and (to that extent) unhealthy.  By contrast, the shaman type is defined fundamentally by wholeness (but not strength!).  The whole human being may be sick in all sorts of ways, even often contracting various social diseases and being afflicted with contaminants of varying sorts.  But despite being frail, or insane, or endangered, the shamanic type is whole.

Perhaps extreme weakness is the price that a shamanic type is prepared to pay for being whole.  The Mutilated type desires not wholeness and doesn’t necessarily need it to attain his sense of self-satisfaction.  But for the shamanic type, things work exactly in reverse (he may be prepared to sacrifice riches, well-being and social esteem, just to be his complete self).

And because things work in reverse for the shamanic type, one has to be quite intellectual superficial (like a postmodernist) to attempt to serve two masters.

RADICAL SHAMANISM

RADICAL SHAMANISM 1 (OF 3 PARTS)

Why shamanism? part 6: outside of time

The large and the tiny human being

MIKEJEN3

JENMIKEpart2

JENMIKEPART1

Australian Stephen Davis risked life in attempt to rescue kidnapped Nigerian girls - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Australian Stephen Davis risked life in attempt to rescue kidnapped Nigerian girls - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation): "A Perth-based international adviser has survived months of extreme danger to try to rescue more than 270 schoolgirls kidnapped by terrorist group Boko Haram in Nigeria.

Stephen Davis, 63, has returned from a four-month sojourn with rare footage of the intense fighting in Nigeria's north-east, as Boko Haram stepped up efforts to establish an Islamic state."



'via Blog this'

SHAMANISM

tree

It seems highly probable that both Bataille and postmodernism assume certain postures on the basis of what they take to be the advantages bestowed on them through the developments taking place in history.

 

In the case of Bataille, one might well question one of the assumption relating to his trope of the “inverted Icarus”  As we have discussed, and in terms of what I see as true, Nietzsche made one of his essential motifs “masculinity” because he was on a phallic ascendency journey to the sky.  If one sees this not so much in terms of an innate masculine impetus, but rather in terms of a need to DEVELOP a masculine familiarity, and condition oneself to a masculine modality of transcendence --- well, perhaps Bataille realized that the historical work had been done.  In other words, so far as HE was concerned (half a century later), his masculinity was already clearly apparent and attained.  What was necessary NOW was to take the movement in the opposite direction (not to lose masculinity, but to capture wholeness).  This might be why Bataille came up with his notion of the inverted Icarus, who doesn’t ascend to the sun, but rather falls into it.  (And I am not sure, but perhaps this is also a falling to Earth, except that Earth is less an emblem of enlightenment than the Sun).

 

But Nietzsche did say, in ZARATHUSTRA, that one should return one’s spiritual harvest to the Earth, rather than send it skyward.

 

Postmodernism, however, has this simplistic formulation that we can dispense with being concerned with BEING and just work on theory, which does the job of labeling and hypnotizing and therefore indirectly controlling being.

 

This is also an assumption about history – that we are beyond rough handling and PHYSICALLY controlling and labeling people.  We can retract and be concerned only with theoretical labels and conceptual constructs, designed to move history (by engaging actively and politically).

 

But once again what obstructs is that this idea does not at all model the human psyche, which is more of a tree with three levels (roots, stem and branches) rather than just historical end points of stem and branches.  Actually the conceit and naivety of Western postmodernists and others similar to them in general is to imagine that history has bestowed on them the capacity to ONLY be stem and branches – whilst they continue to act as root systems as well!

 

Guilt

At some time we can talk about the way guilt operates as a transaction, when it is not viewed in the simple linear terms of ordinary consciousness.  (It is notable that academics understand reality only in terms of simple linear consciousness, or common, ordinary reality, which means they do not understand these transactions occurring beneath the surface of consciousness, which are not guided by rationality at all.

 

This is a hard concept to grasp, then, at the level of ordinary consciousness, but it is not impossible to understand why Bataille thought it was beneficial to take on guilt in relation to others’ evil actions.  For, (as Nietzsche knew) evil  is in fact the capacity for powerful action OUTSIDE OF centrism, and from the viewpoint of conventionalism.  That is exactly what powerful action IS.  (It is always considered guilty/evil action.)

 

Furthermore, on an even deeper level (I’m not sure that even Bataille grasped this), but if guilt is attributed to me, for instance (especially in instances where I have not acted powerfully in any way, not to mention in a counter-conventional way) I will get the SENSATION of feeling powerful – that sensation is often potent enough to make me feel a more powerful person.

 

That is why the leftists’ attribution of guilt to white Rhodesians (and other historical alleged offenders) is so counterproductive – because they are passing on the attribution for evil action not just as as an active expectation but as a projective potency (beneath the surface of consciousness).

 

At that undercurrent level, those who have been attributed as evil gain the capacity to radiate a sense of nonconformity more effectively.  But what is not seen is the invisible transaction, whereby the leftist or liberal’s power to act is displaced onto whom they consider to be the legitimate “evil actor” to give them the potency to act, instead.

 

But conventional – that is to say, academic – interpreters of Bataille, assume that what he meant by “accepting the guilt” (a quote from Nietzsche, about godliness) – means accepting masochism.  No.  It means accepting the gift of potency for non-centrist action.

The large and the tiny human being

identity politics as a narcissistic trend

I agree with this....

“what it happening or emerging is not a disregard but a disbelief in the reality of roots, which creates the delusion or evil that the stem-and-branches are somehow their own root, or their own account.”

 

This is what happens with critical theory.  But there is an inconsistency with critical theory, too, which shows that no matter how much it tries to disavow its primitive impulses (and indeed human primitive impulses overall) to make them go away, it is all the more victim to them perhaps for that reason.

 

In critical theory (and believe me, I studied almost nothing else as an undergraduate), all peoples are good and bright and sunny, no matter how vile their practices (for instance female genital mutilation can be seen in a relativistic light), but Western colonialism alone is Absolute Evil.

 

Well, we they can assert that critical theory is has moved from a darkened mood of ontology into an enlightened one of epistemology and that everything is now just a theory of knowledge and stands without judgment as to people’s purported “essences”, but of course this constant stamping down of the EMBLEMS of colonialism (for instance myself) rather than even its ACTUALITY (the racism that exists in Australia today) is a sign of pathological superficiality.

 

I will accept that not all of critical theory is pathological, but much of it is, just because its adherents are extremely superficial and wish to increase their status through behavior that is offensively superficial whilst at the same time demanding that others see them as way above and beyond making any judgments about anybody (the demand to be seen as morally angelic).  Identity politicians, in particular, put a lot of demands on you to see them in a certain way, but it is never a two-way street.  They demand from you and they take things, but they never reciprocate in the same manner by giving something back.

 

Therefore I see identity politics as a narcissistic trend or mood, deceiving people about what actually knowledge is and taking them away from history.

 

Jennifer & John: two theories of shamanism

Identity politics and narcissistic trends

Identity politics is nothing much much more than narcissistic politics.  I mean it really deprives people of substantive philosophical and historical knowledge and all it leaves them with is a temporary high.  Even in terms of politics – which is what such people consider themselves good at – they are left extremely deficient.

Icarus

Fundamentally, Icarus – as it seems to me, is a phallic or masculine style of thinking.  Icarus seeks enlightenment by transcending the Earth – which he takes as “feminine”.  But this is all too impetuous (although nonetheless very natural, and indeed very necessary).  Actually one has to shoot as high as possible – and definitely for enlightenment (whether one is male or female), but the shaman (i.e. Bataille) as post-metaphysician already knows that this is going to fail.  However, the failure is not in the way that the linear mind would understand failure.  When Icarus falls to Earth, his linear mind considers his an effort that led to failure, but in fact that is wrong – or only half of the picture.

 

In fact, Icarus has reached the limits of his being (which is commendable), but he was only ever in one channel, operating in ONE mode, which is that of linear thought.  His crash is not a disaster (entirely) because it returns him to the other level of thought, which unites him with the duality of existence.  Thus he is reunited with circular (perhaps) or “feminine” thought (diffused thought).  

 

But the shaman (perhaps even the potential shaman in Icarus) knew that this was always bound to happen.  It is in the natural order of things that one gets beyond the monistic thought IF one pushes far enough and with enough resolution – one reaches the limits of one’s being.  After that, one must reunite with the other elements of through that one had left behind.

 

The paradox of shamanic initiation – only after one has crashed and burnt can one be whole.

 

But this is not as pretty as it sounds, and takes a lot to pick up the pieces.

Meet The New Global Leader | Clarissa's Blog

Meet The New Global Leader | Clarissa's Blog



Perhaps humanity will mature one day and gain some sense of historical context and nuance.  Unfortunately we are living in a time when the historical sense seems fundamentally absent everywhere you go, and in its place are a cast of figures with black and white hats, that are sometimes interchangeable!

Maturity and the enlightenment project

Maybe the point is to understand that “enlightenment” really isn’t the point.  Once one understands that it is not the point of maturity in the proper sense, one can live alongside people whom one may have previously despised or considered disturbing, and just enjoy a great deal about them. (This has much to do with my understanding of Marechera as a shamanic figure and how he was treated withe contempt.)  It opens up the scope to just enjoy everything more without worrying whether or not it is perfect.  I had this experience on bus trips in Zimbabwe.  Somehow, when one lets go of the enlightenment project, after having brought it to sufficient maturity, one finds, as if by error, a new level of maturity beyond that one.

Why shamanism?

"Why shamanism?" part 2. participation

"Why shamanism?" part 3 excitement

Our two theories of shamanism

WHY SHAMANISM?

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuQzaDmCy9S__W6g9F0I57A/videos

Breaking through into wisdom

Well, you are saying “can’t” – which is the postmodernist position, and what I have always thought of as diluted shamanism.  But I would say we can break through the barriers.  I think where the postmodernists get confused is that they are stuck in metaphysics still.  So of course, in terms of the linear logic of consciousness, naturally you CAN’T.  Because if you are seeking absolute truth by trying to break through error, then naturally this is not to be found.  Ca ‘n’existe pas.   So they are stuck on the same level of linear logic that they are trying to break out from.  But actually, if you understand that the real change does not occur at the level of linear logic but by becoming so rich in your knowledge, sensations and attributes, that adherence to linear logic just falls away, then we are certainly through a very significant barrier.  And I have done that so I know what I am talking about.  The point is I do not claim to “have” wisdom, and indeed, not of any absolute sort – but suddenly, in your small expression of being you ARE wisdom (and you know it)—and not even your own wisdom, but the wisdom of the meaning of the universe.

 

wisdom and fake wisdom

I'm less concerned with the problematic of "fake wisdom" because ...well....in a way I always felt that the real wisdom was the ability to have an enriched life, and that -- as it has ultimately been shown to me -- one can return to one's sources of vitality if one crashes through the boundaries of the fake wisdom.  In fact notions of societal progress though knowledge are both fake and not fake wisdom depending on whether they are overemphasized.  We do need academic wisdom, but if academic wisdom builds up in importance in our minds until it becomes controlling, then it becomes fake wisdom.  But the dismantling of it is not -- then -- a mindlessly destructive deed, but the same thing as when a chicken pecks its way out of an egg.  It seems that such wisdom is supposed to encase us for a while and then is supposed to be destroyed.  There is nothing mindless about this!

Rhino horn and ebola

Media Information: Immediate Release CONFIRMATION OF LINK BETWEEN EBOLA AND RHINO HORN
(please share far & wide )

The decision to release confirmed rhino poachers in the Hwange region of Zimbabwe, after arrest, has been met with mixed reaction, after it was revealed that the decision was based on their displaying symptoms of haemorrhagic infection (Ebola virus), including fever, vomiting and diarrhoea. Precautionary communication needs to be distributed internationally, in all involved with animal trade, in order to avoid a pandemic.

The official notification from the reads as follows: Ebola haemorrhagic fever is transmitted from infected animals to humans, and then from human to human. Methods of prevention of the spread of the virus include decreasing the spread of disease from infected animals to humans.
This is normally done by checking animals for infection and killing and properly disposing of the bodies if the disease is discovered.
Wearing protective clothing when handling meat and animal products is essential, as is wearing protective clothing and washing hands when in the area of carcasses or persons with the disease.
Samples of bodily fluids, tissues or any cell-containing parts like hair, horn or nails has to be handled with special caution, according to international experts.

Once human infection occurs, the disease may spread between people, as well. Male survivors may be able to transmit the disease via semen for nearly two months. To make the diagnosis, typically other diseases with similar symptoms such as malaria, cholera and other viral hemorrhagic fevers are first excluded.

To confirm the diagnosis, blood samples are tested for viral antibodies, viral RNA, or the virus itself. The spread of Ebola haemorrhagic fever through contact with bush meat is well documented.

Rhino poachers are generally badly educated and often illiterate, and methods used in the removal of rhino horn and other rhino body parts in the bush are not sophisticated. None of the rhino horn or products, because of their illegality, is tested for Ebola haemorrhagic fever.

Two vulnerable groups have been identified regarding the spread of Ebola through RHINO HORN AND RHINO PRODUCTS.
The first group is the poachers and handlers of the horn and products, which is most obvious. The second is a more insidiously infected grouping, namely the end users. Because no tests are carried out on the rhino products, the end users are at possibly the greatest risk, especially because of the ingestion of the rhino products.
The end users are often in Asian countries, where the threat of Ebola infection is not as vivid as in Africa, and thus end users could become unsuspecting victims. Because Ebola haemorrhagic fever is virtually unknown in Asia, the spread could be dramatic before the virus is isolated and identified.

The reality is that there is more than 200% better chance of dying from Ebola haemorrhagic fever after ingesting rhino horn or rhino products, than what there is of achieving an erection and orgasm after ingesting rhino horn or rhino products.

1 1. Wei Xu, Megan R. Edwards, Dominika M. Borek, Alicia R. Feagins, Anuradha Mittal, Joshua B. Alinger, Kayla N. Berry, Benjamin Yen, Daisy W. Leung Ebola Virus VP24 Targets a Unique NLS Binding Site on Karyopherin Alpha 5 to Selectively Compete with Nuclear Import of Phosphorylated STAT1. Cell Host & Microbe, 2014; 16 (2): 187 DOI:10.1016/j.chom.2014.07.008 On 2 April 2014, the World Health Organisation (WHO), in a communiqué published by the UN, reported that it had recorded 5 new cases of Ebola fever in Guinea.

Since January, the total number of suspected and confirmed cases of Ebola fever in the present outbreak in Guinea is 127, with 83 deaths, according to WHO, which states that 35 cases were confirmed by laboratory testing. Of these, 41 deaths were shown to be directly attributable to the handling of rhino horn products or by-products.

The initial samples were analysed in Lyon in the Jean Mérieux-Inserm BSL-4 Laboratory directed by Hervé Raoul, Inserm Research Director, by the French National Reference Centre for Viral Haemorrhagic Fevers (attached to the Biology of Viral Emerging Infections Unit at the Institut Pasteur, directed by Sylvain Baize).

A positive diagnosis was made. The population of west Africa is not nearly as dense at the populations of Asian countries. The risk involved if Ebola ever takes off in Asia warrants an early warning, irrespective of current absence of recorded cases. (ends)
21 August 2014/ English
For immediate distribution

Rhino horn and ebola

Media Information: Immediate Release CONFIRMATION OF LINK BETWEEN EBOLA AND RHINO HORN
(please share far & wide )

The decision to release confirmed rhino poachers in the Hwange region of Zimbabwe, after arrest, has been met with mixed reaction, after it was revealed that the decision was based on their displaying symptoms of haemorrhagic infection (Ebola virus), including fever, vomiting and diarrhoea. Precautionary communication needs to be distributed internationally, in all involved with animal trade, in order to avoid a pandemic.

The official notification from the reads as follows: Ebola haemorrhagic fever is transmitted from infected animals to humans, and then from human to human. Methods of prevention of the spread of the virus include decreasing the spread of disease from infected animals to humans.
This is normally done by checking animals for infection and killing and properly disposing of the bodies if the disease is discovered.
Wearing protective clothing when handling meat and animal products is essential, as is wearing protective clothing and washing hands when in the area of carcasses or persons with the disease.
Samples of bodily fluids, tissues or any cell-containing parts like hair, horn or nails has to be handled with special caution, according to international experts.

Once human infection occurs, the disease may spread between people, as well. Male survivors may be able to transmit the disease via semen for nearly two months. To make the diagnosis, typically other diseases with similar symptoms such as malaria, cholera and other viral hemorrhagic fevers are first excluded.

To confirm the diagnosis, blood samples are tested for viral antibodies, viral RNA, or the virus itself. The spread of Ebola haemorrhagic fever through contact with bush meat is well documented.

Rhino poachers are generally badly educated and often illiterate, and methods used in the removal of rhino horn and other rhino body parts in the bush are not sophisticated. None of the rhino horn or products, because of their illegality, is tested for Ebola haemorrhagic fever.

Two vulnerable groups have been identified regarding the spread of Ebola through RHINO HORN AND RHINO PRODUCTS.
The first group is the poachers and handlers of the horn and products, which is most obvious. The second is a more insidiously infected grouping, namely the end users. Because no tests are carried out on the rhino products, the end users are at possibly the greatest risk, especially because of the ingestion of the rhino products.
The end users are often in Asian countries, where the threat of Ebola infection is not as vivid as in Africa, and thus end users could become unsuspecting victims. Because Ebola haemorrhagic fever is virtually unknown in Asia, the spread could be dramatic before the virus is isolated and identified.

The reality is that there is more than 200% better chance of dying from Ebola haemorrhagic fever after ingesting rhino horn or rhino products, than what there is of achieving an erection and orgasm after ingesting rhino horn or rhino products.

1 1. Wei Xu, Megan R. Edwards, Dominika M. Borek, Alicia R. Feagins, Anuradha Mittal, Joshua B. Alinger, Kayla N. Berry, Benjamin Yen, Daisy W. Leung Ebola Virus VP24 Targets a Unique NLS Binding Site on Karyopherin Alpha 5 to Selectively Compete with Nuclear Import of Phosphorylated STAT1. Cell Host & Microbe, 2014; 16 (2): 187 DOI:10.1016/j.chom.2014.07.008 On 2 April 2014, the World Health Organisation (WHO), in a communiqué published by the UN, reported that it had recorded 5 new cases of Ebola fever in Guinea.

Since January, the total number of suspected and confirmed cases of Ebola fever in the present outbreak in Guinea is 127, with 83 deaths, according to WHO, which states that 35 cases were confirmed by laboratory testing. Of these, 41 deaths were shown to be directly attributable to the handling of rhino horn products or by-products.

The initial samples were analysed in Lyon in the Jean Mérieux-Inserm BSL-4 Laboratory directed by Hervé Raoul, Inserm Research Director, by the French National Reference Centre for Viral Haemorrhagic Fevers (attached to the Biology of Viral Emerging Infections Unit at the Institut Pasteur, directed by Sylvain Baize).

A positive diagnosis was made. The population of west Africa is not nearly as dense at the populations of Asian countries. The risk involved if Ebola ever takes off in Asia warrants an early warning, irrespective of current absence of recorded cases. (ends)
21 August 2014/ English
For immediate distribution

Beyond dualism

1.  The old dualism of materialism versus idealism is (has already been) undermined considerably by advances in biology, physics and possibly even philosophy.  So now we are learning that what seems to be material is actually composed of energy, and what seems to be mental is actually, well, not so much so.  To give you an idea, which relates to recent advances in medical science, it is now becoming apparent that certain mental disorders, like autism, may have their origins in the bacteria (or lack thereof) in the gut.  So we cannot avidly assert that someone lacks mental strength or (perhaps even) ability because they are not of good moral fiber, but rather their gut fiber might not be so good (much more literally).

 

2.  Even back in the forties or fifties (I’m not sure when) Bataille proposed “base materalism” as a mystical formula relating to matter.  I think he specifically remarked on its indeterminacy.  So matter and mysticism can be quite compatible on an abstract level, even if that is not how most people understand it.

 

3.  So, I would move away from positing that there are two basic levels of existence, or two basic levels of understanding.  It might be better to see energy moving into matter and matter moving into energy.  (I have actually thought this way myself – that those whose energies have been captured, by larger and perhaps hostile forces, are forced to remain as matter, losing their capacity to self-transform and adjust at will to difficult or different situations.

 

Hostile forces always try to pin us down, to make our energy visible (materially), so that it can be used and drained off for other purposes.  That is why it is imperative for a shaman to remain invisible and to keep engaging in training that will allow him or her to shapeshift.

 

For "Nicki"

The Communist Dream | Clarissa's Blog

The Communist Dream | Clarissa's Blog



We do not even need to leap to such a question in advance.  We can simply recognise the violence and condemn it as a human rights violation, without befuddling ourselves with questions that most people -- because of their lack of acumen, study and due consideration -- have the ability to answer.  All of these low grade thinkers posing as born ethicists..

Theory of left hand and right hand paths

monkey face

NewMonia

I first began to learn about national personhood after I migrated to NewMonia.   Of course I had my own personality at that time, which was rather shy, extremely dutiful and generally full of anxiety.  I also had a mischievous side, but this did not find much of an outlet in an environment that was far from natural to me.

But people started to teach me about the lovable, or infamous rogue that they thought of as my country of origin.  They taught me this by imposing what they considered to be the characteristics of this country onto me.  Presumably, I was very arrogant and conceited and replete with infamous deeds, for instance those that could have been committed by adult males, if they were out of control.

Whenever I made an error of judgment or asked for assistance to find out how things were supposed to work, I was treated in this light. 

Eventually --- and this is strange, too – I gained some of the characteristics of whom I was supposed to be.   I began to feel very aggressive and even at war with those around me.  It is not as if this manner of treatment of me was relenting.  The more afraid I was that it would start again, the more it brought this out in people.  After more than a decade of different levels of experience, but in a left wing work place, where people seemed to really feel vindictive about the supposed characteristics of my supposed country of origin, I felt like I was going to be totally erased by the force of hostility bought against me – which once again seemed like the kind of animosity you would bring against an enemy soldier who had dared to cross your lines.  Then, I realized that the only way to counteract this level of psychological antagonism was actually to give myself some of the characteristics already attributed to me, which would enable me to start to fight back.

This is how it is when a person is perceived as a country.  But what is it that responds to the other person, not as an individual but as a country?  Certainly, it must be the country within them, that is responding to another country. 

So we see that people draw their boundary lines in the dirt, and act out their particular country’s fears and hostilities.  In NewMonians I saw that they were suffering from a good deal of colonial guilt, so it made sense that they would try to deflect their discomfort about their own identity by projecting their sense of a dark, shadowy, evil potential onto me.

And there are other ways that people of particular nationalities set out to make themselves look good.  One of the biggest ways is by denying that anything exists outside of their psychological boundaries, or that they are even capable of engaging in hostilities of any sort.  They might explain the effects of their hostilities in totally different terms, for example in terms of training others about ethics, or I terms of diagnosing another person’s alleged pathologies.  In any case, part of the perfection of political boundary defense is in not seeing it as entailing any form of proactive aggression or hostility.

Mystification is just not having reached your goals

Mystification is just not having reached your goals from Jennifer Frances Armstrong on Vimeo.

I'm not a mystic.

History and tectonic technology

Shamanism does have a political dimension actually, because it enables you to see id structures that form battle lines.

It’s my view that if we come asunder on one of the boundaries of these broad, historical id structures, we will either be destroyed or be forced to shamanize.

But to shamanize is to see, for the first time, the outlines of these id structures, and how they dominate the lives of whole sectors of the community.  That is why Marechera’s insights into the ID structures of contemporary Zimbabwe were so useful to me.  You have to know where people are inclined to draw a line and fight you with the irrational parts of their beings, rather than taking in what you have to say in an open and objective spirit.  If you don’t understand these kinds of things, AND you happen to be situated right at the boundaries of these broad historical structures, you will end up succumbing to others feints and false alliances.

So, to me, shamanism does open up a sphere of a higher level of knowledge, which is basically political and bounded by the limits of reality aligned to historical necessity.

This is something Westerners do not see, as a rule, because they, themselves, are at the center (not the boundary) of a huge political landmass, which causes them not to have to experience any degree of historical change or disruption.  They remain undisturbed by such sensations, which feeds into their notion that we are all just isolated individuals, who have no essential relationship to history or to historical change.

awakening the historical sense

After a couple of decades of deep experience and self-analysis, I believe that the structure of my psyche may be significantly different from that of people who were raised in the West, or indeed in circumstances of advanced industrialization.  I have had experiences that may not be available to many people, as a result of this – my different upbringing and my different structure of the psyche.

 

So what concerns me is that I am true to myself and to my insights, which have been accumulated in circumstances that most people would describe as extremely difficult (compared to what is considered normal circumstances).

 

Also, I see the historical sense as part of the accruement of my particular shamanism.  I think that when many Westerners have a blocked sense of instinct or the capacity to see things according to their own organic capabilities, they are also fundamentally lacking in a notion of historical sense – for instance, they tend to see their childhood selves and their adult selves and their future selves as all mostly the same, with just a few minor changes.  This is a lack of historical sense and a lack of understanding of how deeply they are entwined in their present environment – I mean how much their present cultural environment moderates their experiences.  If they were able to see themselves coming under the force of history and it’s political structures and being forced to change and become something else under its pressures, they would suddenly understand a great deal more than they do – and be able to afford an exoteric perspective!

My emphasis on shamanism is very much in terms of a historical construct.  It seems we disagree on our paradigms in this regard.  There may be those who think differently (which I also put down to the impact of historical formation forces).

 

Mine is a historically interested paradigm, first and foremost.

shamanic initiation

My account of my improvement is that I was able to blast open a lid that separated me from my previous self.  having done that, I was able to access those resources from the previous self, including some I had not encountered yet.

 

One of the differences between us is that I do draw much of my vital energy from reference to the past.  That is actually a healthy turn for me.

 

Another is that I do not identify as Western.    I really am much more African and find redemption only when I refer back to and restore those African roots.

 

I'm not a mystic.

So It Goes On | Clarissa's Blog

So It Goes On | Clarissa's Blog



It seems like because there is not a clear line as to what comprises authority, there is a battle for authority.  Like I said, this could relate to a general conceptual fuzziness about justice, since everybody and everything is considered more or less the same, no matter what their actions.

Liberating violence

Let me make the difference a bit more explicit to you, because it can be lost on people who have been brought up in the comparatively more permissive West.  I will make it more obvious in this way, by a narration, but I am sure there could still the temptation to say that two opposing motivations (fearing dishonor and wanting to be liked) are fundamentally the same.  

 

In the Air Crash Investigations show last night, they showed a Korean Air cargo jet that crashed in the UK.  Apparently the pilot was a captain in the Korean military before he transferred to become a captain in the airline business.  But in fact he had not trained on airliners.  He should really not have been put in the position of captain, but for him to be relegated as first officer would have been a loss of face.  Anyway, the instruments were faulty, but he had previously been reprimanded for not paying attention to his instruments, so even though he may have sensed that something was wrong, he continued to take his readings from his instruments.  Meanwhile the first officer told him that he was banking 90 degrees.  The first officer’s instruments were correct.  But the military trained pilot ignored the first officer and followed his own instruments.  The first officer didn’t say anything more, because he did not want the higher status captain to lose face.  So the plane ploughed into the ground.

 

Well, firstly, I do not want to deny that there is a sense of awe and honor, loyalty, etc. in obeying cultural laws like these created in the Korean military.  But I also want to point to a qualitative difference between behavior that is commanded by fear and behavior that is commanded by a principle of wanting to get along and be liked.   One might well argue that the differences are philosophically subtle, and that we ought to just say that whatever anybody does, it is for the sake of the pleasure principle.  Somehow this would make the Korean pilots out to be like jolly old fellows, just rolling along and wanting to be liked.   In fact, perhaps it is more likely that the first officer feared, as the narrator of the show insinuated, dishonor more than death.

 

But I do see this theoretical flaw appearing the theorizing of contemporary Westerners again and again.  It posits that we are all jolly old clowns, just rolling along and wanting to be liked.   It’s very strange to impute that motivation to everyone, in my view, and this is a lens that does tend to fuzzy rather than clarify the vision!

I actually think Bataille is speaking to people like me – people of the stricter authoritarian orders, who need terrifying visions and terrifying injunctions....to help them free themselves from terror.

 

It’s a strange solution but one that seems to work.

Empty Shells | Clarissa's Blog

Empty Shells | Clarissa's Blog





Well the corruption of ethics in contemporary times is seen in the notion that if somebody gets killed or maimed, then both parties -- the murderer and the murdered -- are probably equally to blame.  I don't know who set this notion into circulation, but there it is, and it causes the erasure of ethics and ethical considerations.

Wesley Lowery's post on Vine

Wesley Lowery's post on Vine:



'via Blog this'

simplified psychical structures

I will maintain that what psychologists of today leave out of the mix in their models of the psyche is the the level of inherited cultural and social mores, which are very firm, rigid and external to any experiences one may have had.  And as I say, contemporary people, it seems, simply do not UNDERSTAND the Superego, or see any room for it, because rarely do these people today inherit such strong external structures into their minds.

Keys to understanding me

The key to understanding me is the political and historical key.  With that (set of) keys, you can achieve an almost complete understanding.

It really isn’t more complicated than that.  I think Western ego psychology has a lot to answer for in making very, very obvious things seem hard to observe.

But there are some things that differ, very significantly, from how Westerners experience themselves.

The first key is authoritarianism.

This means the rigid adherence to external form, no matter what one may be feeling inside.

That has always been my training – my early cultural conditioning from the youngest age.

The second key is I had very young parents who did not manage their fears about a child’s possible (but unlikely) non-adherence to authority and authoritative norms.

The third key is that I was ripped out of my home soil just at the age when adulthood is being established and one is putting down roots.

A fourth key is that emotions were not engaged with in a lavish way, due to the war.

A fifth is the feeling of shame through losing one’s homeland (my father’s sense of shame at God abandoning him through the loss of the war)  and because others said the natural behavior one had learned was suspicious in all manner of ways (did it evince racism or delusions of superiority?  If there was even a hint of suspicion that it did – not actual content, but suspicion – I was taught a “lesson”).

All of this has a political and historical meaning and origin.  There is no need to look further, or deeper for something strange, as they will not be found.

Furthermore, my reactions are very logical.  If a certain group of people create a setting where I am treated with suspicion, I am not comfortable with them.  But if they do not create such a setting, then everything is perfectly fine.  I respond to a trusting situation with trust and an untrusting situation with fear.

These facts are all quite obviously on the surface of reality.  So let’s not mystify.  Let’s just accept them.

Flambards episode one

The ape in his pretty cape!

Vast experimental apparatus! from Jennifer Frances Armstrong on Vimeo.

The weakened root system

I think if you look at the structure of my psyche, what you find is a structurally weakened metabolic self.  This does not mean that I do not have very strong COMPONENTS of a metabolic self – but there is a STRUCTURAL flaw.

 

I think this flaw developed firstly, from an early age, because of my father’s episodes of rage, especially in relation to whether or not he perceived we were conforming to social norms.  If he perceived that things were not perfect, he would fly into a rage.  Since conformity was not possible either – (the demand was too ambiguous and fraught with uncertainty) – I developed a tendency to flip a switch and not to be present very much, in relation to these rages.

 

That was, I think, the basis of an early metabolic flaw.

 

Later, when I was compelled to migrate, right at an age where I was just establishing an adult identity, I lost my roots.  This was like being a tree with no roots.  Without their very rugged and forceful vitality, I suffered from a compromised immune system and caught every little virus going.

 

The fact that I continued to be attacked for my identity made it very difficult to put down roots.  People were basically implying, “Your roots are bad.  Start again!”  So I kept trying to start again.  But one does not simply start again at the age of 16, with a different character structure, different loyalties and different notions of the world.  The fact that I took their injunction seriously and tried to start again meant that I did not have the stamina in certain situations to persist through them.  I kept trying to be like what the average Westerner expected me to be, but as this involved denying my basic metabolic instincts and adopting those that were not mine, the amount of energy it took to repress reflex and think non-reflexively was more than I could muster.

 

From the other side, my father kept attacking me for the opposite reasons that others were inclined to attack.  He was angry to the extent that I was even capable of adapting and putting down roots.  This made him feel like the whole war in Rhodesia had been for nothing.  To the extent I made a life for myself, I was considered wayward and a renegade.

 

The accumulated effect of this was to make me feel it was very, very dangerous to have a metabolic self – that is, a self that is firmly rooted in its own visceral sense of meaning and value and an implicit understanding of the social order.

 

When people attacked my metabolic self – my Rhodesian identity and experiences up until the age of 15/16 – I felt disoriented and unable to experience emotion.  My capacity to have feelings or awareness of my surroundings, apart from a narrow, tunnel-vision, simply disappeared.  

 

The basic structural flaw, as well as further events that continued to exacerbate it, made adaptation to modernity pretty much impossible for me.  I have tried – but I just keep switching off from complex emotional engagements with things when attacked at the root level (when people criticize my automatic or early organic programmed reactions).  It’s not that I am hurt by criticism, by any means – it’s just that I cannot draw any meaning from it, and it leads to a separation from my own emotions, so that I do not understand even myself.  I feel organically detached.

 

So, this is what led me into shamanism.  In a sense it is the fact that I don’t really have an identity that is allowed to settle in.  When others take it upon themselves to destroy the existing structures and to constantly attempt to remold you, you do not have an identity that you can actually work with.

 

Consequently, you learn to see things in an unusual way.  In particular, political and social boundaries and the methods used to guard and protect them become much more obvious.   Also, mechanisms of control within systems become clearer to observe.

 

For me, being always on the outside of things by necessity is what affords a shamanic perspective.  Unfortunately, what is observed from the outside it almost impossible to convey to those on the inside of the system, whose egos and personalities have been built into the cultural and social structures they inhabit.

 

Shamanism is a little bit pointless.  But one has no choice but to persist.

 

 

 

 

 

The absurdity of confusing focus on duty with failed self-interest

Boxing for fitness

The shamanic type and "the abyss"

False gurus who prey on you

The dream last night

Last night I had the dream that Mike had been kidnapped by terrorists and they said they would kill him about 25 days.  I had trouble taking this seriously, but then I realized I had only 25 days to rescue him, or else he was no more.  I realized how serious this situation was, even though I was still in the grace period of the 25 days reprieve.

aujourd'hui

portraits August 14

The shamanic type and "the abyss"

satisfaction concern

With me, you will KEEP FINDING this constant assertion that I would have died of spiritual malnutrition had I not taken the extreme actions against myself and against my doxa, that I took.  And I will keep saying this, because to me, this was shamanic initiation.

 

To live an emaciated yet witty life and to scramble for food might be an alternative type of solution, but you already would need to have at least a partial access to yourself to be able to do that – and even then, it is a sacrifice for very little, in my view.

 

Marechera as shaman

Marechera as shaman:



'via Blog this'

The need to be still taking risks!

Testing new Skype recorder

Jennifer Theory: The structure of shamanism

Boxing for fitness

Bataille, fascism, intellectuals....

metaphorical motherhood

How Kyle Kingsbury used ayahuasca to become a happier person and a worse fighter | MMAjunkie

How Kyle Kingsbury used ayahuasca to become a happier person and a worse fighter | MMAjunkie

He got taken down over and over again. He got mauled by punches and elbows. Several times he seemed right on the brink of being stopped, only to somehow limp onward in the service of an increasingly hopeless cause. It was the fourth consecutive loss for Kingsbury, the last of his career, according to him, and it wasn’t even close.

It was also a fight he took in part because of experiences he’d had while under the influence of the psychedelic drug ayahuasca, and it was everything he wanted it to be, whether anyone outside the cage realized it or not.

“This was for me,” Kingsbury told MMAjunkie. “This fight was for me. I wanted to see if I could go in there with a clear head and perform. In terms of what I was shooting for from a mental standpoint and an emotional standpoint, I definitely got what I was looking for, and on the biggest stage.”

There’s really no good way to explain to people that you want to fight because of things that happened to you while you were tripping off a brew made of some Amazonian vine. You start throwing around terms like “apex teacher plant” and “dream state,” and it’s bound to get you some funny looks.

Pregnancy is a war between mother and child – Suzanne Sadedin – Aeon

Pregnancy is a war between mother and child – Suzanne Sadedin – Aeon

Len Wendt • 6 days ago

This is genuinely the most interesting piece I have read this month. 
In the context of the idealized mother-child relationship, not least the mother-foetus 'relationship' increasingly prevalent among the religious right, this is a molotov cocktail. That the foetus actively endangers the mother in its own self-interest, so is quarantined. Yet it is almost unsurprising: the logical result of paternal genes wanting to get any advantage they can.

Mike and Jennifer

Classics Club #14: The Autobiography of Malcolm X | Clarissa's Blog

Classics Club #14: The Autobiography of Malcolm X | Clarissa's Blog



The identity politics movement seems to be like that doesn’t it? In many respects it seems to be about not wanting to be what you are and setting up a false image of perfection and doing some social climbing.

Petty Troubles and Big Drama | Clarissa's Blog

Petty Troubles and Big Drama | Clarissa's Blog: "Perhaps if the candidates did more sit ups and push ups, they would not feel the strain in their muscles they appear to feel. I guess the only solution would be to work them harder! (Navy seal type solution to the apparent problem.)"



'via Blog this'

Shamanism and mastery

The computer room

The computer room from Jennifer Frances Armstrong on Vimeo.

The structure of shamanism

Magic manuals and feminism

The academic mind.

For all of its claims to be open-minded and attuned to new levels of criticism, academia is really concerned with the instillation of dogmatic thought.  There is a certain genteel openness to differences expressed in personality that belies the fact that many in academia are really not open to the kinds of ideas that would in any way not already be accommodated by the existing academic dogmas.

 

For instance, in the humanities, there is the prevalent idea that we are all, gradually, incrementally, making our way toward a more enlightened and fair-minded attitude, as a society.  That is one of the fundamental academic dogmas.  This idea is that progress is inevitable and that it is slow and that that academia itself represents the fundamental bastion of enlightened thought.

 

But academia is all too often close-minded to the possibility of sudden shifts in consciousness, as would take place within the framework of shamanism.   It is also close-minded in terms of real, ethical fair play.  If you cannot feed your knowledge and experiences in, through one of the holes that is already available in the academic edifice, you will not be heard at all.  That is a problem.

 

For instance, if I would like to speak of the fact that people who migrate from right wing countries can also be susceptible to suffering, I will not be heard at all.  I can speak, but it is as if I am not saying anything.  There is no hole in academia to feed that information through.

 

But if I point out that there is suffering and oppression in developing countries due to oppressive regimes, there are all too many holes to feed that information into.  

 

Also, in academia, there is an expectation of one having a fundamental identity – an easily recognizable mode of being, based on categorical definition.  One may have an ethnic origin, a gender, a sexual orientation, etc.  It is understood implicitly that one speaks through the orientation of one’s particular identity.  

 

But my real identity structure is not considered to exist, particularly, for academia.  It’s so much of a problem to academia that it is NOT EVEN a problem anymore.  It’s out of sight and out of mind.

 

The way academia preemptively structures and controls thought goes quite some way to explaining why and how, for a long time when I was in the system of academia, I felt like the process of thinking involved a necessary dissociation from oneself, by stepping aside from who one really knows one is and taking on a more hackneyed identity, in order to speak as an academic to academics.

 

One has to take on the attitude of, “I am female, therefore...” or, “I am white, therefore...”  (these are allowable categories).  Or, one may even speak of “intersectionality”:  “I am female and white and a migrant (but definitionally not of the oppressed sort, since “white” cancels out “oppression”).  Intersectionality means that I am at the juncture of all of these identities, and therefore the nature of my being and my prospects for the future are seemingly already well-known.

 

But actually very little can be known through dwelling in this dogmatic, dissociated state.  In fact, this leads to virtually an anti-knowledge.

 

What can be known is rooted in experience, not categorical delineations of the external characteristics of identity.

 

But this false system of knowledge as to who I am can tend to by quite insistent.

 

The structure of shamanism

The structure of shamanism

INITIATION

Shamanic initiation seems to involve a dissolution or even a "dissipation" (temporary degeneration) of the being, through violence. By "violence" I do not necessarily mean external force. The force can well up from the inside, or be a result of partaking of extreme chemical substances. If one's nerves are extremely overextended, such as (for some people) meditating on some aspects of violence they have experienced, or something suddenly changes, like a fly landing on the hand of a Zen monk whose mind has already become incredibly stretched, through the rigors of contemplation, the violence from the outside enters the inside and there is no longer a differentiation between outside and inside.

Through the initiation process, the relationship between the individual and the external world is changed, as he or she is no longer embedded in the reality defined by earlier social conditioning.  This does not mean that the initiate may not return to VISIT such states as one who has departed from the old mindset -- that is quite possible.  But the embedded and comfortable status in relation to one's home no longer exists.   A shaman is, then, effectively homeless -- and perhaps spiritual homelessness is one of the essential features of the shamanic type.  Along with this, though, is the more important psychological component of ADJUSTMENT to homelessness, which completes the initiation and gives the (now) initiate the tools to wander.

Where to go?  There are two axes and four directions.  One may go back into the past, or into the future.  One may ascend into the heavens (transcendence) or descend into hill (immanence and below, into the psychological roots of our existence).    This freedom not to have to remain in present time and space but to move into other zones (representing modes of consciousness) is attained through successful shamanic initiation.  (Of course, one hesitates to speak of the unsuccessful outcomes, where a dissolution of being is not followed by the acquisition of additional knowledge that would make homelessness possible or even palatable.)  Successful shamanic initiation, especially these days, may be an accident of fate -- if one is weak enough to succumb to rupturing violence and yet strong enough to put oneself together afterwards, one can be said to have undergone a successful shamanic initiation.

But the loss of being, even temporarily, is not to be taken lightly, and the wound that it inflicts, although bringing wisdom, may be permanently debilitating, for instance, by adding a dimension to being that makes it more difficult to socialize, in some instances.  Traditional shamanic literature (quoted by Mircea Eliade) speaks of the difficulty of regaining the contents of one's being in very grueling terms.  For instance, all the organs from the body are taken out and boiled and then replaced.  One must be sure to count all the body parts to make sure none are missing, or otherwise one fails to make the "difficult crossing" that would facilitate a return from the dead.   This kind of language, which is really the language of torture, is not that different from that of Nietzsche when he speaks of the initiate into knowledge as one who was "almost sacrificed".   Similarly, there is a shamanic obsession with wholeness, which appears as nothing if not a life and death issue.  (Bataille, a disciple of Nietzsche, was himself concerned with psychical wholeness and wrote about his obsession in his introduction to his book, "On Nietzsche".)

So the return to wholeness, having lost one's ability to be embedded as part of the herd, is one of the most difficult tasks of self-development.   It may take many years, if it is completed at all.  Nietzsche's "On the way of the creator" in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, details some of the travails that such a would-be initiate will meet on the way, such as confrontation with the condemnation of one's own conscience for taking a path that doesn't have the prior approval of the herd (and of the herd's voice, which cautions one within, concerning the danger of one's necessary enterprise).

The point is that the enterprise of achieving wholeness on one's own becomes absolutely imperative once one has faced disintegration, since the herd and its wisdom cannot reach one anymore, from this position on the verge of complete psychological destruction.  One has, in effect, outgrown the herd, but is not yet strong enough to stand completely on one's own -- a difficult time, then, has been guaranteed!  (And members of the herd, sensing the vulnerability, will often do their best to make sure that this time is not just a bit trying, but distressingly hard.)

This is what it means to experience shamanic initiation -- but afterwards one is much more free in many ways, and more whole.  Of course there are other stages of development, too, such as learning to move more effectively between the different zones of consciousness that one is now more free to explore. One can learn to enjoy the process and develop dexterity in the mode of action.

ADDENDUM:

The physical expression of force and psychical violence are different things, although both experiences are terrifying.

The point of the particularly shamanic experience, is that the psychical terror changes the perspective from an outside-in perspective, to one that is inside-out.  That is, it intensifies subjectivity (inner sensations) and also prioritizes them.

Once one has become shamanically alive, through this prioritizing of the inner life, everything seems changed and more alive than before. 

Theory of shamanism: note

My experiences were inter-psychical violence.  In fact the physical expression of force and psychical violence are different things.  Both experiences are terrifying.

I think the point of the particularly shamanic experience, though, is that the psychical terror changes the perspective from an outside-in perspective, to one that is inside-out.  That is, it intensifies subjectivity (inner sensations) and also prioritizes them.

Once one has become shamanically alive, through this prioritizing of the inner life, everything seems changed and possibly more alive than before.

So there is a qualitative difference between a shocking experience that is not shamanic and one that is.

Emotional calibration

A Clear Example of Narcissistic Rage | Clarissa's Blog

A Clear Example of Narcissistic Rage | Clarissa's Blog

You know, in the past I would not have had the capacity to analyse character through a text in that way, but I am starting to see how it makes sense to do so.  I would have analysed it purely formally, in the sense of assuming the writer had a lot of things on her mind that she wanted to draw together, and that she was starting with a big picture, drawing it in to make a very small picture (herself) and then drawing away again from the small picture and back to the big picture focus.   It might seem a rather strained piece of writing, in the formalistic sense, but it was written for a vaguely feminist outlet, Jezebel.  So maybe she wanted to talk about women and child-bearing within a context of acknowledging the reality of global violence.

I am sure the writing can be viewed that way, and that appraising its qualities in a formal, literary sense, rather than a psychological manner is often important to do.

On another level, though -- the level of cultural critique -- one could ascertain that the writing is narcissistic.  That's because there is so much that comes out on the Internet that does not even attempt to take the individual outside of herself or himself and place them into the broader context they have mentioned.  Instead, the world must shrink to occupy the smaller space of the self.  There should at least be a two-directional pathway between the broader world and self, with information flowing in BOTH directions.  If information flows only one way, that is a sign that the writer may not be a deep thinker.

Having said that, I will now talk about myself.   My original position was diametrically opposite to that of the writer who channels everything into the smallness of herself.   As dramatic as it sounds, I used to have almost no sense of the self at all.  Everything used to be outward-looking.  As a result, As a result, after migration, when the environment changed, I aggressively attacked myself at an unconscious level, in such a way that it played havoc with my immune system and left me perpetually exhausted.  I don't know how this happened, but I think that having been brought up in a time of war, all our energies were directed to the next episode of attack or defence or what was on the news (who was killed, who remained alive), so there was no focus on developing and inward sense of self and no time for it.

Even now, having developed an outward-looking character structure, even the intense inward focus of the writer tends to register to me on a literary-formalistic rather than individual-as-subject level.

I am actually just learning, these days, from an individual that Clarissa wrote to on my behalf, how this individual-as-subject level of reflexive interpretation works.  I've really always been blind to it.  For instance, I keep saying, "shamanism is a formal structure of experience that one passes through," whereas it seems he says, "shamanism is the capacity of the individual to perform effectively."  Even this difference of perspective indicates how little prepared I am to take the individual as a separate structure unto himself all that seriously.  While I can do so, that is not my reflex and is really a second language I am learning.

Speaking a different language from others, by reflex, though, is not always the best for analysing the world.  So I must make a shift from viewing the whole world in terms of literary formalism and start taking the individual expresssions of the self more seriously.