Running
head: CONFLICTING
PERSPECTIVES ON SHAMANS AND SHAMANISM
Conflicting Perspectives on
Shamans and Shamanism:
Points and Counterpoints
Shamans’
communities grant them privileged status to attend to those communities’ groups’ psychological
and spiritual needs. Shamans claim to modify their attentional states and
engage in activities that enable them to access information not ordinarily
attainable by members of the social group that has granted them shamanic
status. Western perspectives on shamanism have changed and clashed over the
centuries; this paper presents points and counterpoints regarding what might be
termed the dDemonic mModel,
the cCharlatan
mModel,
the sSchizophrenia
mModel,
the sSoul
Fflight
mModel,
the dDecadgenerativent and cCrude
tTechnology
mModel,
and the dDeconstructionist
mModel.
Western interpretations of shamanism often reveal more about the observer than
they do about the observed; in addressing this challenge, the studya
psychology of shamanism could make contributions to
cognitive neuroscience, social psychology, psychological therapy, and
ecological psychologymay address this challenge.
Conflicting Perspectives on
Shamans and Shamanism:
Points and Counterpoints
Recent
developments in qualitative research and the innovative use of conventional
investigative methods have provided the tools to bring both rigor and
creativity to the disciplined
examination of shamans, their behavior, and experiences. However, a A review
of Western psychological perspectives on shamans reveals several conflicting
perspectives. This essay focuses on these controversies.
Psychology
can be defined as the disciplined study of behavior and experience. The
term shaman is a social construct, one that
has been described, not unfairly, as “"a
made-up, modern, Western category”" (Taussig, 1989, p.
57). This termthat
describes a particular type of practitioner who attends to the psychological
and spiritual needs of a community that has granted thate
practitioner privileged status. Shamans claim to engage in specialized
activities that enable them to access valuable information that is not
ordinarily available to other members
of their community (Krippner, 2000). Hence, shamanism can be
described as a body of techniques and activities that supposedly enable its
practitioners to access information that is not ordinarily attainable by
members of the social group that gave them privileged status. These practitioners
use this information in attempts to meet the needs of this group and its
members.
Contemporary
shamanic practitioners exist at the band,
nomadic–pastoral, horticultural–agricultural, and state levels of
societies. There are many types of shamans. For example, among the Cuna Indians of Panama, the abisua shaman heals by singing, the inaduledi specializes in herbal cures,
and the nele focuses on diagnosis.
Winkelman’s
(1992) seminal cross-cultural study focused on 47 societies’ magico-religious
practitioners, who claim to interact with nonordinary
dimensions of human existence. This interaction involves special knowledge of purported spirit entities and how
to relate to them, as well as special
powers that supposedly allow these practitioners
to influence the course of nature or human affairs. Winkelman coded each type
of practitioner separately on such
characteristics as the type of magical
or religious activity performed; the technology usedemployed; the
mind-altering procedures used (if any); the
practitioner’s cosmology and worldview; and each practitioner’s perceived
power, psychological characteristics, socioeconomic status, and political role.
Winkelman’s
(1992)
statistical analysis yielded four practitioner groups: (a1)
the shaman complex
(shamans, shaman-healers, and
healers); (b2) priests and priestesses; (c3)
diviners, seers, and
mediums; (d4) malevolent practitioners
(witches and sorcerers). Shamans were most often present at the band level.
Priests and priestesses were most present in horticultural/agricultural
communities, and diviners and malevolent practitioners were observed in
state-level societies.
Most
diviners report that they are
conduits for a spirit’s power and claim not to exercise personal volition once they have incorporated“incorporate”
(or are “possessed by”)
these spirit entities. When shamans interacted with
spirits, the shamans weare almost
always dominant; if the shamans suspended volition, it wais
only temporary. For example, shamans surrender volition during some Native American ritual dances when there is an
intense perceptual “flooding.”
Nonetheless, shamans purportedly kneow
how to enter and exit this type of
intense experience (Winkelman, 2000).
Shamans
enter their profession in a number of ways, depending on the traditions of
their community. Some shamans inherit the
role (Larsen, 1976, p.59). Others may display particular bodily signs,
behaviors, or experiences that might constitute a call to shamanize (Heinze, 1991,
pp. 146-156). In some cases, the call
arrives late in life, giving meritorious individuals
opportunities to continue their civil service, or, conversely,
an individual's’ training may
begin at birth. The training mentor may be an experienced shaman or a spirit
entity. The skills to be learned vary, but usually include diagnosis and treatment of illness, contacting
and working with benevolent spirit entities, appeasing or fighting malevolent
spirit entities, supervising sacred rituals, interpreting dreams, assimilating herbal knowledge,
predicting the weather, and/or mastering their self-regulation of bodily functions
and attentional states.
The
European states that sent explorers to the Devil,
had desecrated sacred Christian ceremonies, and had consorted with spirits.
Thus, many chroniclers were Christian clergy who described shamans as d“Devil
worshippers” (Narby & Huxley, 2001, pp. 9-10).
A 16th -century
account by the Spanish navigator and historian, Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo
(1535/2001, pp. 11-12) describeds
“revered” old men, held in “high esteem,” who used
tobacco in order to “worship the Devil” (pp. 11-12). The first person to
introduce tobacco to .” (pp. 13, 15).
The paje, he wrote, “use certain
ceremonies and diabolical invocations” and “invoke the evil spirit” in order to
“cure fevers,” determine the answers to “very important” community problems,
and learn “the most secret things of nature” (pp. 13-15-15).
Another
French priest, Antoine Biet (1664/2001), observed the rigorous training program
undergone by indigenous practitioners or piayes.
To Biet, the rigors of of a 10-year
apprenticeship provided the piayes
the “power of curing illness,” but only by becoming “true penitents of the
Demon” (pp. 16-17). Avvakum Petrovich (1672/2001), a
17th
-century
Russian clergyman, was the first person to use the word “shaman” in a published
text, describing one Siberian shaman as “a villain” (p. 18) who
calleds
upon demons (pp. 18-20).
Shamans engage in shamanic rivalries, wars, and duplicity
(e.g., Hugh-Jones, 1996, pp. 32-37). Even so, ethical training is a key element
of the shaman’s education; according to M. Harner
(1980), shamanism at its best has an ethical core (but see M.F. Brown,
1989, for a discussion of shamanism’s “dark side”).
Walsh’s (1990) study of various shamanic traditions revealed rigorous systems
of ethics: “The best of shamanism has long been based on an ethic of compassion
and service” (pp. 2497-249).
Dow (1986) conducted field work with don Antonio, an Otomi Indian shaman in
central Mexico, who described his fellow shamans as warriors who must “firmly
declare forever an alliance with the forces of good, with God, and then fight
to uphold those forces” (p. 8). In addition, shamans must dedicate themselves
to ending suffering, even it if requires them to forego their own comfort (p.
39).
Modern
social scientists do not accuse shamans of consorting with demons. These
accusations, however, are still being made by some missionaries (see
Hugh-Jones, 1996) as well as by shamans themselves who may accuse
rival shamans of using their powers for malevolent purposesevil ends
(Hugh-Jones,
1996, p. 38).
Most
writers in “Enlightenment”
belittled the notion that shamans communed with otherworldly entities, much
less the Devil. Instead, shamans were described as “charlatans,” “imposters,”
and “magicians.” These appellations undercut the Inquisition’s justification
for torturing shamans, but also kept Western science and philosophy from taking
shamanism seriously.
Flaherty
(1992), however, noted that
According
to Diderot, shamans “lock themselves "into steamrooms to make themselves sweat,” (p. 33),
often after drinking a “special beverage [that they say] is very important to
receiving the celestial impressions.” (p. 35). He remarked that shamans “persuade the
majority of people that they have ecstatic transports, in which the genies
reveal the future and hidden things to them.” Despite their trickery, Diderot
concluded, “The supernatural occasionally enters into their operations . . . . They do not always guess by chance” (pp. 342-37).
The French
Jesuit missionary Joseph Lafitau (1724/2001) spent 5 years living among the
Iroquois and Hurons in magicians.” (p. 25),
On the other hand, Lafitau admitted that oftentimes there was something more to
these magicians’ practices than trickery, especially when shamans exposed “the
secret desires of the soul” (pp. 243-26).
According
to Johann Gmelin (1751/2001), an 18th century German explorer of
Siberia, the shamanic ceremonies he observed were marked by “humbug,”
“hocus-pocus,” “conjuring tricks,” and “infernal racket” (pp. 27-28). A Russian
botanist of the same era, Stepan Krasheninnikov (1755/2001), reported to the
imperial government that the natives of eastern .” (p. 29).
Krasheninnikov wrote that shamans weare
“considered doctors” and admitted that they were “cleverer, more adroit and
shrewder than the rest of the people.” (p. 30),
He described one shaman who “plunged a knife in his belly” but performed the
trick “so crudely” that “one could see him slide the knife along his stomach
and pretend to stab himself, then squeeze a bladder to make blood come out”
(pp. 3049-51).
Not all
Enlightenment scholars were hostile to shamanism; for example, the German
philosopher Johann Herder (1785/2001) noted that “one thinks that one has explained
everything by calling them imposters.” (p. 36).
Herder continued, “In most places, this is the case,” but “let us never forget
that they belong to the people as well and . . . were conceived and brought up
with the imaginary representations of their tribe.” (p. 36).
Indeed, “Among all the forces of the human soul, imagination is perhaps the
least explored.” (p. 37). Imagination seems to be “the knot of the
relationships between mind and body” and “relates to the construction of the
entire body, and in particular of the brain and nerves—as numerous and
astonishing illnesses demonstrate” (p. p. 36-37).
The re is a small
body of parapsychological research conducted with shamans that suggests
that,
on irregular occasions, some practitioners may be capable of
demonstrating unusual abilities (Rogo, 1987; Van de Castle, 1977). These data
were collected not only by means of controlled observations, such as having
shamans locateing hidden
objects (Boshier, 1974), but also throughfrom
experimental procedures such as asking shamans to guess the symbols on
standardized card decks (Rose, 1956) or requesting that they influence randomly
generated electronic activity at a distance
(Giesler, 1986).
As for the
use of sleight-of-hand, Hansen (2001) has compiled dozens of examples of
shamanic trickery from the anthropological literature butand
adds that deception may promote healing (pp. 89-90). Unusual abilities, if they
exist, are likely to be unpredictable; trickery may accompany their use, as
shamans are prototypical “tricksters,” and, as do some contemporary
psychotherapists, believe that they must often “trick” their clients into becominge
well (e.g., Warner, 1980).
Shamans operate on the limens, or borders, of both society and
consciousness, eluding structures and crossing established boundaries (Hansen,
2001, p. 27). As liminal practitioners, they often useemploy
deception and sleight-of-hand when they feel that such practices are needed.
Thus, shamans can be both cultural heroes and hoaxsters, alternating between
gallant support of those in distress and crass manipulation. Like other
tricksters, however, they are capable of reconciling opposites; they justify
their adroit maneuvering and use of legerdemain in the cause of promoting
individual and community health and well-being (pp. 30-31).
When mental health professionals first commented on shamanic behavior, it was customary for them to use psychopathological descriptors. The French ethnopsychiatrist George Devereux (1961) concluded that shamans were mentally “deranged” (p. 1089) and should be considered severely neurotic or even psychotic. The American psychiatrist Julian Silverman (1967) postulated that shamanism is a form of acute schizophrenia because the two conditions have in common “grossly non-reality-oriented ideation, abnormal perceptual experiences, profound emotional upheavals, and bizarre mannerisms” (p. 22). According to Silverman, the only difference between shamanic states and contemporary schizophrenia in Western industrialized societies is “the degree of cultural acceptance of the individual’s psychological resolution of a life crisis” (p. 23).
Taking a
psychohistorical perspective, deMause (2002) proposed that all tribal people
“since the Paleolithic . . . regularly felt themselves breaking into fragmented
pieces, switching into dissociated states and going into shamanistic trances to
try to put themselves together” (p. 251). According to DdeMause,
added
that shamans were “schizoids” (p. 250) who
spent much of their lives in fantasy worlds where they were starved, burned,
beaten, raped, lacerated, and dismembered, yet were able to recover their bones
and flesh and experience ecstatic rebirth. This account by DdeMause ’s account
is reminiscent of the portrayal of shamans as “wounded healers”
who have worked their way “through many painful emotional trials to find the
basis for their calling” (Sandner, 1997, p. 6) and who have taken an “inner
journey . . . during a life crisis” (Halifax, 1982, p.5).
Roger Walsh
(2001), an American psychiatrist, provided a penetrating analysis of shamanic
phenomenology in which he concluded that it is “clearly distinct from
schizophrenic . . . states” (p. 34), especially on such important dimensions as
awareness of the environment, concentration, control, sense of identity,
arousal, affect, and mental imagery. Critics of the schizophrenia model claim
that shamans have been men and women of
great talent; Basilov’s (1997) case studies of Turkic shamans in Siberia demonstrate
their ability to master a complex vocabulary as well as extensive knowledge
concerning herbs, rituals, healing procedures, and the purported spirit world.
Sandner (1979) described the remarkable abilities of the Navajo hatalii: to attain their status, they
must memorize at least 10 ceremonial chants, each of which contains hundreds of
individual songs.
Noll (1983)
compared verbal reports from both schizophrenics and shamans with criteria
described in the third edition of the
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of
Mental Disorders. He reported
that important phenomenological differences exist between the two groups and that the “schizophrenic metaphor” (p. 455) of shamanism is therefore untenable (p. 455).
This assertion is supported by personality test data; for example, Boyer,
Klopfer, Brawer, and Kawai (1964) administered Rorschach inkblots to 12 male Apache shamans, 52 nonshamans, and 7 “pseudoshamans
(practitioners who considered themselves shamans, but had been denied that
status by their community)..” Rorschach
analysis demonstrated that the shamans showed as high a degree of reality- testing
potential as did nonshamans.
Boyer et al.The authors concluded, “In their mental approach, the shamans appear
less hysterical than the other
groups” (p. 176) and were “”“healthier than their
societal co-members . . . . This finding argues against [the] stand that the shaman is severely neurotic or
psychotic, at least insofar as the Apaches
are concerned” (p. 179). and were “healthier than
their societal co-members . . . .
This finding argues against [the] stand that the shaman is severely neurotic or psychotic, at least insofar as the Apaches are concerned” (p. 179).
Fabrega and Silver’s (1973) study used a different projective technique with 20
Zinacantecoan shamans and
23 of
their nonshaman peers in Mexico and
found few differences between the groups, but described the shamans as freer
and more creative.
The
first epidemiological survey of psychiatric disorders among shamans was
reported in 2002. A research team associated with the Transcultural
Psychosocial Organization of Amsterdam (Van Ommeren et al., 2002) surveyed a
community of 616 male Bhutanese refugees in ir
general profile of disorders did not significantly differ from that of the
nonshamans. Indeed, shamans had fewer of the general anxiety disorders that
afflicted nonshamans.
Wilson and
Barber (1981) identified fantasy-prone
personalities among their hypnotic participantssubjects.
This group wais highly imaginative but, for the most
part, neither neurotic nor psychotic (Van
Ommeren et al., 2002). It is likely that many shamans would fall
within this category, as the shamans'’s
visions and fantasies are thought to represent
activities in the spirit world (Noel,
1999; Noll, 1985). Ripinsky-Naxon (1993) concluded, “The world of
. . . a mentally dysfunctional individual is disintegrated. On
the other hand, just the opposite may be said about a shaman” (p. 104).
Along these lines, Frank and Frank (1991) traced the roots of psychotherapy
back to shamanism, and Torrey (1986) asserteds
that the “cure” rate of
shamans and other indigenous practitioners compares favorably with that of
Western psychologists and psychiatrists.
Contemporary social scientists
rarely pathologize shamans, and when they describe them as “wounded
healers” and “fantasy-prone,”
these attributions are often combined with admiration, respect, or
indifference. Of course, the variety of shamanic selection procedures undercuts
these generalizations, especially when shamanism is hereditary and a novice
assumes the role even without having experienced a “wounding” illness. A far
greater commonality among shamanic practitioners is the attentionconsideration
they give to resolving the psychological problems and challenges faced by
individuals, families, and communities within their purview.
The Romanian n-American
religion historian Mircea Eliade (1951/1972) integrated the many tribal
variations of shamanism into a unified concept, referring to them as
“technicians of ecstasy.” (p. 5). According to Eliade, “The shaman specializes in a trance during
which his soul is believed to leave his body and ascent ascend to
the sky or descend to the underworld” (p. 5). For Mmany
other
writers have agreed, stating
thats, altered
states of consciousness (ASCs) are the sine qua non of shamanism, particularly
those
ASCs involving ecstatic journeying, (i.e., soul flight or out-of-body
experience). Heinze (1991) wrote, “Only those individuals can be called
shamans who can access alternative states of consciousness at will” (p. 13).
Ripinsky-Naxon (1993) added, “Clearly, the shaman’s technique of ecstasy is the
main component in the shamanic state of consciousness” (p. 86).
Proponents
of the soul flight/ecstatic journeying model point to the close association amongbetween
rhythmic percussion (and other forms of perceptual flooding),
journeying, and healing. Neher’s (1961) investigations demonstrated that
drumming could induce theta wave EEG frequency. Maxfield (1994) built on and
extended Neher’s work and found that theta brain waves were synchronized with
monotonous drumbeats of 3 to – - 6 cycles per second, a rhythm
associated with many shamanic rituals. S. Harner and
Tyron (1996) studied students of shamanism during drumming sessions and
observed trends toward enhanced positive mood states and an increase in
positive immune response. Bittman et al. (2001) also reported that rhythmic
drumming had a salubrious effect upon immune systems.
The term “shamanic
state of consciousness ” (M. Harner,
1980) infers that there is a single state that characterizes shamans, even
though it can be induced in several different ways. Winkelman’s (1992)
cross-cultural survey of 47 societies yielded data that
demonstratinge that at least
one type of practitioner in each populace
engaged in ASC induction by one or many vehicles. For Winkelman (2000), each
vehicle to the ASC resulted in an “integrative
mode” of consciousness. This mode reflects
slow wave discharges, producing strongly coherent brainwave patterns that
synchronize the frontal areas of the brain, integrating nonverbal information
into the frontal cortex, and producing visionary
experiences and “insight.”
According
to its critics, the soul flight model ignores the diversity of shamanic ASCs as
well as activity that does not seem to involve dramatic shifts in
consciousness. Peters and Price-Williams (1980) compared 42 societies from four4
different cultural areas and identified three common elements in shamanic ASCs:
voluntary control of the ASC, post-ASC
memory of the experience, and the ability to communicate with others during the
ASC. Peters and Price-Williams also reported that shamans in 18 out of the 42
societies they surveyed specialized in spirit incorporation: 10 were engaged in
out-of-body journeying, 11 in both spirit incorporation and
out-of-body journeyingprocedures, and
3 in some different ASC. In other words, there are several “shamanic
states of consciousness,” and not all of them use employ ecstatic
soul flight (Walsh, 1990, p. 214). Eliade's statements are further
constricted by his emphasis on flights to the shamanic “"upperworld”"
rather than to the “"underworld,”"
which is of equal importance (Noel, 1999, p. 35).
The soul
flight model also has been criticized by those who deny that profound
alterations of consciousness are the defining characteristic of shamanismThe soul
flight model also has been criticized by those who deny that profound
alterations of consciousness are the defining characteristic of shamanism.
Some shamanic traditions do not use terms that easily translate into “alterations”
of consciousness. Navaho shamans exhibit prodigious feats of memory in
recounting cultural myths, and use sand paintings, drums, and dances in the process, but they insist
“they need no special trance or ecstatic vision . . . only the desire and the
patience to learn the vast amount of symbolic material” (Sandner, 1979, p.
242).
Berman (2000) suggesteds
that the term heightened awareness more
accurately captures shamanic behavior more accurately
than altered states because shamans
describe their intense experience of the natural world with such statementsin such
terms as "things often seem to blaze" (p. 30). Shweder
(1972) administered a number of perceptual tests to a group of Zinacanteco
Zinacateco shamans
and nonshamans, asking them, for example, to identify a series of blurred,
out-of-focus photographs. Nonshamans were more likely than shamans to respond,
“I don’t know.” Shamans were prone to describe the photographs, even when the
pictures were completely blurred. When the examiner offered suggestions aboutas
to what
the image might be, the shamans were more likely than the nonshamans to ignore
the suggestion and give their own interpretations.
Paradoxically,
shamans are characterized both by an acute perception of their environment and
by imaginative fantasy. These traits include the potential for pretending and
role
-playing and the capacity to
experience the natural world vividly. During times of social stress, these
traits may have given prehistoric shamans an edge over peers who had simply
embraced life as it presented itself, without the filters of myth or ritual
(Shweder, 1972, p. 81).
ItIt
may be more appropriate to speak of shamanic
modification of attentional states rather than of a single shamanic state of consciousness (such as
soul flight) as a common hallmark of shamanic practice.
Attention
determines what enters someone’'s awareness. When
attention is selective, there is an aroused internal state that makes some
stimuli more relevant than are others are, thus more likely to attract
one’'s attention.
The
suppression of seances, spirit dances, and drumming rituals by colonial
governments and missionaries led to the decline of altered states induction in
some parts of the world (e.g., Hugh-Jones, 1996, p. 70; Taussig, 1987, pp.
93-104). MorMore basic to e basic to
shamanismi sm “”may be a unique attention that they givea
tounique
perception of the relations between human beings, their own
bodies, and the natural world—--and theire shamans’
willingness to share the resultingis knowledge
with others (Perrin, 1992, pp. 122-123.).
The
suppression of seances, spirit dances, and drumming rituals by colonial
governments and missionaries led to the decline of altered
states induction in some
parts of the world (e.g., Hugh-Jones, 1996, p. 70; Taussig, 1987, pp. 93-104). The
function of these procedures had been to shift the shaman’'s
attention to internal processes or external perceptions that could be used for
the benefit of the community and its members. Outsiders’'
bans of these technologies
diminished the social role played by shamans,
and increased tribal dependence upon the colonial administrators.
The American transpersonal philosopher Ken Wilber (1981)
divided what he called “higher states of consciousness”
into several categories. His hierarchy started with the “ subtle”
(with and without iconography); proceeded to the “causal”
(experienced as “pure consciousness” or “the
void”),
and thence to the “absolute”
(the experience of the “true nature” of
consciousness). He took the position that consciousness not only unfolds not only
during the life -span of an
individual, but also during the evolution of
humanity, with a select number of individuals attaining the “farthest reaches” (p. 141)
of that development (p. 141).
Wilber (1981) granted that shamans were the
first practitioners to systematically access systematically
“higher states,” but only at the “subtle states” level because
their technology was “crude” (p. 142). He speculated that an occasional shaman
might have broken into the “causal” realm, but
insists that “causal” and “absolute”
states could not be attained systematically until the emergence of the meditative
traditions. Wilber placed shamanism at the fifth 5th
level of an eight8-level
spectrum.
Wilber (1981) supported his position by
using examples from Eliade’s (1951/1972) book, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy. Wilber
described the book as,
calling
it “the definitive study of the subject” (p. 70). Eliade’s (1951/1972)
position was that “shamanism is found within a considerable number
of religions, for shamanism always remains an ecstatic technique” (p. 8).
Eliade constructed a hierarchy of his own, however, taking the position that
the use of mind-altering plants was a degenerate way to obtain visionary
experiences. According to Eliade, those states attained “with the help of
narcotics” are not “real trances” but “semi-trances” (p. 24). Eliade continued,
“The use of narcotics is, rather, indicative of the decadence of a technique of
ecstasy or of its extension to ‘lower’ peoples or social groups” (p. 477).
Walsh
(1990) accepted the validity of Wilber’s (1981) categories,
but retorted that shamanism is an oral tradition. If shamans have experienced
states higher than those at the “subtle level,” their
accounts may have been lost to subsequent generations (p. 240). In addition, unitive experiences, such
as those described by Wilber, were not a priority of shamans whose because
their efforts were directed toward community service (Krippner,
2000, p. 111; Walsh, 1990, p. 240).
D.P. Brown
and Engler (1986) administered Rorschach Inkblots to practitioners of mindful meditation and discovered that their responses
illustrated their stages of meditative development, which reflected “the
perceptual changes that occur with intense meditation” (p. 193). One Rorschach
protocol was unique in that it integrated all 10 inkblots into a single
associative theme (p. 191). However, Klopfer and Boyer (1961) had obtained a
similar protocol from an Apache shaman who used the inkblots to teach the
examiner about his lived worldview and his ecstatic
flights through the universe. D. P. Brown and Engler (1986) suggested
that this may have been a response that, regardless of the spiritual tradition,
pointed “a way for others to ‘see’ reality more clearly in such a way that it
alleviates their suffering” (p. 214). Shamans’ attempts to alleviate the
suffering of their communities and what Wilber called their “crude” technology
might be exceptionally well suited for this task (Krippner, 2000, p. 111).
Wilber
(1981) made sweeping generalizations about shamanism but did not recognize the
many varieties of shamanic experience. For example, he identified “the classic
symbolism of shamanism” (p. 70) as the bird (p. 70),
although in some shamanic societies, the deer or the bear is the central totem
(Ripinsky-Naxon, 1993). He claimed that the “true” shamanic experience involves
“a severe crisis” (p. p. 73-74),
although there are accounts of shamanic callings that do not involve
catastrophes. Indeed, the shamanic “crisis” could be a political strategy that
limits the number of contenders for the shamanic role (Krippner, 2000, p. 111).
As for
Eliade’s charge that the use of mind-altering drugs represents “degenerate”
forms of shamanism, Ripinsky-Naxon (1993) responded that “Eliade failed to
recognize the critical role of hallucinogens in shamanistic techniques” (p.
103). The archeological evidence indicates that mind-altering substances date
back to pre-Neolithic times, rather than being a later, “degenerate”
addition to shamanic practices (p. 153).
After surveying the cross-cultural research data, Coan
(1987) warned, “It would be a mistake to assume that shamanism represents just
one stage either in the evolution of human society or in the evolution of human
consciousness” (p. 62). Wilber’s (1981) relegation of shamans to the “subtle”
level of his “higher states”
hierarchy virtually ignores the role played by shamans in their community. Such
descriptors as “crude” and “degenerate”
ignore the “cultivation of wisdom” (Walsh, 1990, p. 248) that
has long been a hallmark of shamanism (Walsh, 1990, p. 248).
Deconstructionism is a central strand in the
intellectual movement known as “postmodernism,”
which challenges the “modern” notions of rationality and objective reality.
Postmodern scholarship, according to Gergen (2001),
. . . poses significant challenges to pivotal assumptions of individual knowledge, objectivity, and truth. In their place, an emphasis is placed on the communal construction of knowledge, objectivity as a relational achievement, and language as a pragmatic medium through which local truths are constituted. (p. 803)
Deconstructionism
has its roots in literary criticism, but its influence expanded as members of
other disciplines attempted to show that words are ambiguous and cannot be
trusted as straightforward, dependable representations of “reality”
or of “something
outside
oneself. there.” George Hansen (2001), anthe
American parapsychologist and magician, identified deconstruction as a key shamanic role.:
Sshamans break down categories; confound boundaries,
especially those “between worlds;” and
specialize in ambiguity. “Trickster tales” are an
example of how language can useemploy double
meanings and paradox to provide instruction to their listeners
(Babcock-Abrahams, 1975).
Deconstructionists maintain that polarities and privileged
positions are simply arbitrary human constructions, a position thatwhich
calls into question the notion of “objective reality” (Hansen,
2001, p. 64). By consorting with spirits, shamans deconstruct the polarity of
life and death. By breaking taboos to obtain magical power, shamans challenge
authority. AfterUpon returning
from their “journeys,” shamans
describe strange dimensions of “reality,” thus
confounding their community’s sense of what is “real.”
Reichel-Dolmatoff (1975/2001) observed that shamans
mediate “between superterrestrial forces and society” (p. 217).
Shaman’s’ status
depends on the complexity of their societies. Winkelman (1992) found that
shamans hold high status in bands and lower status in agricultural states. Eventually,
shamans are denigrated as “psychotic,” “epileptic,”
or “deviant,” especially when When Western
rationality becomes the dominant paradigm, shamans
are often denigrated as “psychotic,” “epileptic,” or
“deviant” (Hansen,
2001, p. 101). Writing about Siberian shamans and their persecution by both
church and state, Hamayon (1996) concluded that shamans are “simultaneously
adaptive and vulnerable” (p. 76) and that “there is an absence of shamanistic
clergy, doctrine, dogma, church, and so forth” (p. 77).
Deconstructionism is no longer limited to literary texts
but is often useemployed to
describe the impact of politically and financially powerful groups on
societies’ priorities and worldviews. Hansen used deconstructionism to describe
how power is applied both by shamans and against shamans. Shamans speak of power places and power objects, and their quest for power is carried out in service
of the community, usually in public rituals (Langdon, 1992, p. 14). Once
shamans are relegated to the fringes of society, they become the victims of
people and institutions that operate under different paradigms. Shamans may
find support in communities that also have been marginalized. These shamans, in
the tradition of deconstructionism, then challenge “privileged” authority, hierarchies,
and structures.
M. F. Brown (1989) provided an example
of the shaman as deconstructionist in his description of “Yankush,” a pseudonym
for a prominent shaman among the Aguaruna of northeastern
M. F. Brown continued, “The ambiguities of the shaman’s role were brought home to me during a healing session I attended in Yankush’s house” (p. 253). The clients were two women, both apparent victims of sorcerers’ darts. Yankush waited until evening (an example of blurring boundaries, in this case between night and day), and drank ayahuasca, an herbal concoction, just before sunset. “As Yankush’s intoxication increased . . . he sucked noisily on the patients’ bodies in an effort to remove the darts” (p. 253). Suddenly, a woman called out, “If there are any darts there when she gets back home, they may say that Yankush put them there. So take them all out!” (p. 254). Brown wrote, this “statement was an unusually blunt rendering of an ambivalence implicit in all relations between Aguaruna shamans and their clients . . . . If . . . results are not forthcoming, the shaman himself may be suspected of, and punished for, sorcery” (p. 254). Finally, the participants left Yankush’s house, expressing their contentment with the results of his effort (p. 255). This account is marked by a dissolution of boundaries (drinking a mind-altering brew at sunset) and by ambivalence (doubts regarding the shaman’s competence), both hallmarks of deconstructionism.
Another example is provided by Townsley (1993/2001),
who explored the epistemology of the Yaminahua, a people living in the Peruvian
Amazon, and decoded the secret language
used by its shamans. In the spirit world referred to in the songs of this
language, “everything . . . is marked by an extreme ambiguity” (p. 264). This
language “is made up of metaphoric circumlocutions or unusual words for common
things which are either archaic or borrowed from neighboring languages . . . .
They also create new songs and invent fresh metaphors” (p. 268). “The important thing, emphasized by all shamans, is that none of
the things referred to in the song should be referred to by their proper names”
(p. 269). Hence, this deconstructionist model returns to its original
emphasis on language.
As Hansen (2001) noted, there
have been many “furious denunciations” and “frantic utterings” (p. 27) about
deconstructionism and other aspects of postmodern thought (p. 27). Gross
and Levitt (1998) agreed with Hansen that postmodernists are imbued with “non-Western”
modes of thought, but concluded that this posture leads to higher superstition
instead of to insight. They admitted that Western science has been “culturally
constructed”; ” (p. 43); that
its projects “reflect the interests, beliefs, and even the prejudices of the
ambient culture” (p. 43); and that “no serious thinker
about science, least of all scientists themselves, doubt that personal and
social factors influence . . . the acceptance of results by the scientific
community” (p. 139). Nonetheless, Nevertheless, they used the
term “shaman” derisively each time it is mentioned in their 1998 book, Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and
Its Quarrels with Science.Gross and Levitt used the term “"shaman”"
derisively each time it was mentioned in their 1998 book, Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its
Quarrels with Science, as when they deride the “"mentality
of LSD mysticism, shamanistic revelation, and ecstatic nonsense”"
(p. 224).
Is
shamanic thought incompatible with Western rationality as Hansen suggests?
Hubbard (2002a), after evaluating the issue from
the perspective of cognitive psychology, concluded that “conceptual structures
underlying shamanism may result from the same types of cognitive processes and
the same cognitive constraints (e.g., properties of mental representation) also
experienced by non-shamans and by scientists” (p. 135). Hubbard continued,
“Shamanic thought thus would not reflect regressive or psychotic tendencies,
but would instead reflect normative cognitive functioning” (p. 136).
Physical deconstruction is evident in many of the
dreams and visions in which some shamanic initiates report being torn apart and
dismembered. HHansen, however, neglected the next step in
the process: for
For the prospective shaman,, however, this deconstructive
procedure is eventually followed by a reconstruction
of bones and flesh, during which there is an ecstatic rebirth. In a similar
way, shamans often reconstruct a shattered psyche. Pansy Hawk Wing (1997), a
Lakota medicine woman, describeds the Yuwipi ceremony in which a
practitioner intercedes between community members and spirit entities to “pull
together all the various parts of the whole” (p. 199).
The
American anthropologist Jean Langdon (1992) wrote that power is the key concept
that links shamanic systems, enabling shamans to mediate between “the human and
the extrahuman” (p. 13). Langdon granted that shamans have an “ambiguous
position in society” (p. 14) because they may employ power
in negative ways, especially when they direct it against enemies outside of
their social group. Nevertheless, shamanic power is usually manifested “in
public ritual for the benefit of the community or for individuals” (p. 14).
Conflicts between shamans and proponents
zealous administrators of organized
religion can be seen as a struggle between deconstructionists and “privileged”
authority. Those writers who call shamanism a “religion” ignore the fact that
there are Buddhist shamans, Christian shamans, Muslim shamans, pagan shamans, and so
forthetc. Shamans are of great interest for
many postmodernist writers because they represent the “marginalized other.”
More often than not, shamans engage in trickery, improvise and engage in
unpredictable behavior, embrace the fluidity of different planes of human existence,
and exhibit ambiguous sexuality. In their efforts to share esoteric knowledge
with their community, it is essential for shamans to deconstruct order,
especially if a person’s or a community’s rigidity and inflexibility have
blocked adaptation and growth. Nevertheless, shamans must eventually assemble
what has been disassembled, that is, and
reconstruct what has been deconstructed, if they are
to be of service to their community.
Shamans
appear to have been humankind’s first
psychotherapists, first physicians,
first magicians, first performing artists, first storytellers, and even the first timekeepers and weather
forecasters. Dow (1986) proposed that shamans not only
represent not only the oldest profession but
are “the world’s most versatile specialists” (p. 6). This review of
controversies regarding shamans and shamanism indicates that Western
interpretations typically reveal more about the observer than they do about the
observed and that the construction of a psychology of shamanism needs to
address this challenge.
Referring
to shamanism, Walsh (1990, pp. 257-258) remarked, “People’s
interpretations of the phenomena will be largely determined by their personal
beliefs, philosophy, and ‘world hypothesis’.” (pp.
257-258). This world hypothesis or personal mythology (Feinstein & Krippner, 1988) consists of the
fundamental beliefs about the nature of the world and reality that underlie
one’s life and work. Most people simply take the consensual assumptions of
their culture and subculture unquestioningly and interpret the world
accordingly (Walsh, 1990, pp. 257-258).
Information concerning world hypotheses and personal mythologies could predict the stance that individuals and groups will take when c