eternal recurrence and the shaman

eternal recurrence and the shaman: There are a few different levels of interpretation of an esoteric text like Nietzsche's.  The karmic is one level of interpretation, but the shamanistic/affirmative idea is a deeper level.   You can lose your complexes through shamanistic regression, so there is no longer any error to be corrected. You and your unconscious are one.


Not many people can gain a genuine recapitulation through "facing death". Those who can say it are shamans. But paradoxically, they have had to pay for their freedom with their wounding. I am speaking in a neuro-psychological sense. This is far from mysticism. Those who have some psychological wounding (a radical change in one's society might do it to you, or certain forms of oppression/bullying) can often learn very quickly about the ways their unconscious mind functions. Their unconscious mind and their conscious mind are one. This is hardly true for most, and the lower one's spiritual status is, the less one will have access to the deeper parts of one's own mind. One can imagine the lowest on the ladder of the spiritual hierarchy having no idea what their unconscious is actually doing or what it wants -- hence back-biting and self-delusion, along with a general lack of courage in facing things directly. One simply cannot face that which one does not have the courage to know.

What they sometimes get through their suffering is actually shamanistic knowledge. The shamanistic formula is "facing death". Those who can face their own annihilation (represented as shamanic regression, leading to re-learning via temporary "ego death") will be healed. But one only seeks this kind of healing when life itself has put one under extreme duress. One would rather not do it. But if one has received an extreme psychological wound, one will often be able to regress to a very early level, and thus get to the origins of one's own identity in such a way that one can heal oneself.  For one to have the courage to go to this level is really rare, very rare.

So that is the most esoteric interpretation of the eternal recurrence. But the karmic interpretation will be true of many people. Perhaps we can see a spiritual hierarchy forming on the basis of how one interprets this puzzle of the eternal recurrence? Those who have healed themselves are truly free, but they are the few. The rest, who fear to go to such extremes of facing death (and it is an anti-intuitive thing to do under most circumstances) will have a karmic interpretation of eternal recurrence. Others still will see it as a sign of misery and condemnation:  unavoidable servitude or sameness due to the eternal recurrence of the same.

This other interpretation of eternal recurrence being eternal misery is most likely one to be made by people who are unable to experience shamanic regeneration. Eternal return then suggests no escape. That would be the logical conclusion if you cannot access your internal resources to create yourself anew.