Shamanism

[DmnStr8]

DMT is a strange substance. Hyperspace can be a difficult place to navigate. It can be confusing and it's easy to get sidetracked. Often times I felt I was riding a roller coaster and have no control over the experience.

Shamans are able to navigate altered states with relative ease. They have received the tools and training necessary to guide and heal others over thousands of years. It's time tested. How can this knowledge be implemented into western culture?

What exactly is modern shamanism? Is their any place for a shaman in western society?

People are traveling in droves to South America to experience Ayahuasca with a shaman. They want to tap the resources of the shaman. They go and they want the shaman to heal them. They seek a guide. They seek a teacher. How is this going to happen when there is such a cultural difference? It is interesting to hear a shaman call upon the spirit of the jaguar but the symbolism of the jaguar will be diluted when presented to the western world. Almost all religions have undergone a reformation. Adapting to the times and to the people. WIth all do respect to the heritage from which it came I feel like shamanism needs a reformation for western society. Instead of a jaguar we can supply some other symbol. Etc.... Is it ok to adapt shamanism so it more useful, relatable, and powerful to the western mind?

With all this in mind. I seek to heal myself as a shaman does. I give myself the tools of the ancients. I give myself the knowledge of these great teachers. I seek to respect the history and heritage from which it came. But I think some things get lost in translation.

What do you think about modern shamanism? Does the west need a translator or bridge between cultures enable to experience the full power of shamanism? I figure this is an excellent place to pose these types of questions. I feel many here may be closet or sleeping shamans. I think the time has come where the shaman once again has a place in this world.

Below is a quote from Carl Jung that illustrates my point. If westerners are spiritually weakened, then they will need guides and teachers to help them. Can we translate the power of shamanism so they can receive the most out of it?

"To let the unconscious go its own way and to experience it as reality is something that exceeds the courage and capacity of the average European. He prefers simply not to understand this problem. For the spiritually weakened this is the better course since the thing is not without its dangers." ~Carl Jung

 

[Animistic]

Interesting topic you brought up! I would say that shamanism is definitely something the west needs more of but that is obvious since so many of us are seeking out experiences from the Amazonian tradition. They are and will be the translators but translating always has an element of "Chinese whispers" like you said In my mind that's not a bad thing and is only natural.

I think shamanism will fundamentally change on its own as it hits western consciousness. Europeans do have a history of shamanic traditions, as do all peoples at the end of the day, we have just forgotten but it is within us. I mean it must innately be since all cultures have shamanic traditions/medicines that didn't have direct lines of communicating. I would say we don't need to actively try to change shamanism, it will change as the western environment dictates. Just like a stream is effected by the bank that surrounds it and likewise the stream effects the bank without effort being consciously applied and over time the two dance into something that contains elements from both.

Also I'm not sure that saying that Europeans are spiritually weakened is a useful terminology, sure a lot of westerners are very afraid to turn inward but an increasing amount are despite the inner and cultural forces inhibiting them..that takes a certain strength in my opinion. Ultimately the best guide is within and the guides who people seek out in my understanding are those who have realized this and started cultivating that inner stillness/strength/peace and spiritual know how so that they can hold/protect the space for others.

The Amazon curanderos and curanderas have so much to teach us but if we are to apply it to western culture it has to morph. I have heard that some really experienced medicine folk in the Amazon do have some level of trouble treating westerners because their problems are foreign to them. This doesn't make them superfluous though in my opinion.

One last thing, symbols can be pretty universal. I have had the jaguar archetype be very personally significant for myself in my journey. If this isn't the right symbol for you or someone else then another symbol will likely appear fitting the same energy/frequency. The mother naturally uses our own cultural symbology to talk to us.

Just my two cents on the matter.

A.

 

[ganesh]

What do you think about modern shamanism? Does the west need a translator or bridge between cultures enable to experience the full power of shamanism? I figure this is an excellent place to pose these types of questions. I feel many here may be closet or sleeping shamans. I think the time has come where the shaman once again has a place in this world.

I agree with most of what 'TheAwakening' says.

However, i think it's only fair to say that traditionally, Ayahuasca was employed differently than the way it is used today in so called, 'healing centres', which were largely created by westerners for westerners.

I think there is as much of a need to employ such types of healing's in the West, as there is need to properly respect and understand them, so that they may be used safely and effectively, for the good of the people and the treatments.

That is what i believe to be the most important factor.

 

[entheogenic-gnosis]

The shaman is a person who is able to transcend the dimensional confines of cultural existence. . . . Only the shaman knows that culture is a game. Everyone else takes it seriously. That’s how he can do his magic

I don't like the term shaman, but it's definitions describe very well what I am doing. So I guess I am a type of modern Entheogenic shaman, however I dont have desire to create a business out of it, I don't claim to be a healer, and I honestly am not in favor of many of the "New age" approaches to shamanism, I'm very reclusive, which affords me a good deal of time to truly explore and understand these Entheogenic plants and the state's they produce, for me it's always been about exploration, personal healing and growth, spiritual understanding, and access to non-physical and after death states, you also become somewhat of a spiritual diplomat, but I've never been comfortable speaking about these things, don't get me wrong I love to share about the plants, the compounds in them, their preperations, their history, and so on, but I rarely share much else.

For me it's something very personal. It's a personal connection to mother earth, it's a deep respect and honor for plants and plant medicine, and it's an education in life, death, and the nature of consciousness, it's also the core of my spiritual practice.

The shaman is not merely a sick man, or a madman; he is a sick man who has healed himself.'-terence mckenna

.

I feel that now more than ever people are able to obtain information, and obtain plants, as well as make connections with others in the practice, and people are now able to take their spiritual practice into their own hands, a modern person in the first world can be using plants and techniques from across culture s ans across the globe, those practicing shamanism now have access to the information, techniques, and entheogens used by shamanic cultures globally, a modern shaman can be skilled in peyote, San Pedro, ayahuasca, psilocybin fungi, and iboga, where as in the past a shaman was limited what was available in his environment.

Shamanism is growing and evolving in a beautiful way for dedicated individuals...

... but it's also being exploited, corrupted, and misused by capitalist motivations. "Scam shamanism" is growing just as quickly.

Actual shamanism may be dying in a way, the rainforest youth are moving to the cities to get factory jobs, rather than staying with the tribe and learning shamanism, so it may be dying in this sense, but this has also led to shamans sharing their knowledge with the world, I live in the United states and work with shamans from south america, who would probably not be in the United states teaching westerners if the situation in the rainforests was not changing as it is...



Any way, below are several excerpts from terence mckenna lectures, I feel he articulates the views I hold of the shaman quite well, I selected these excerpts because I personally agree with mckenna in these areas, though it seems when it comes to shamanism itself as well as my personal relation to it, no amount of writing seems to be able to fully encompass what shamanism truly is, it's more than a philosophy or a religion, it's a complete way of living and thinking.

When a shaman talks about spirit, he’s using a term as technically complicated in his mind as when a physicist uses the term beauty to describe a quark. You know, it’s very technically defined. And we tend to simplify, and then suppose that we understand.
Part of the thing I found with hanging with shamans in various places and times is that once you get past the language barrier, what shamans are are simply curious people. Intellectuals of a certain type. In Australian aboriginal slang, a shaman is called a “clever fellow”. If someone says “I’m a clever fellow”, they mean, you know, I’m a shaman. Well, that’s all it is – it’s somebody who pays attention to how things actually work, and sort of transcends the culture by that means. It’s a weird paradox. It’s that the shamans, who are the keepers of the cultural values, are also necessarily the keepers of the secrets of the theatrics of the cultural values, and so they live their lives in the light of the knowledge that it all rests on showbiz. You know, everybody else is a true believer, but these are the image-makers, the people who actually pull the strings and control the evolution of the mythologies. And in a way, it’s a situation of alienation.
Mircea Eliade talks a lot about this in Shamanism: The Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy and in History: The Eternal Return. He talks about how the shaman is socially marginal, politically marginal, lives at the edge of the village, and so forth and so on, and is feared by the people, because dealings with the shaman are always dealings about life and death. But then the shaman comes forward in this critical role, as go-between, as mediator, between the cultural mind and the real world, which is this potent set of forces and planetary cycles and meteorological events and diseases and, you know, fate; and the shaman mediates. In many languages, the word for shaman means “go-between”. So the cost of this, or the price of this, for the shaman himself, or herself, is a kind of alienation from the cultural values, and a kind of understanding that it’s a game that’s kept in play. -mckenna

And what is shamanism but philosophy with a hands-on attitude. Philosophy not made around the camp fire, but philosophy based on the acquisition of extreme experience. That’s how you figure out what the world is, not by bicycling around in the burbs, but by forcing extreme experience -mckenna

when you deal with preliterate cultures you discover that the shaman is a very peculiar figure.
He is critical to the function of the psychological and social life of his community, but in a way he’s always peripheral to it – he lives at the edge of the village, he is only called upon in matters of great social crisis, he is feared and respected, and this might be a description of these hallucinogenic substances. They are feared and respected, they are misunderstood, they are only called upon often in moments of great crisis, and they are persistent, but always a peripheral part of the community. -mckenna


Shamanism is not some obscure concern of cultural anthropologists: shamanism is how religion was practised for its first million years. Up until about 12,000 years ago, there was no other form of religion on this planet; that was how people attained some kind of access to the sacred. And so shamanism then becomes about technique, and if any of you are students of the literature of shamanism, you probably know that one of the great overviews of shamanism is contained in Mircea Eliade’s book, Shamanism: The Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy. The archaic techniques of ecstasy. In other words, shamanism is not so much a religion, as ordinarily conceived, as it is a kind of pre-rational science; a kind of methodology for attaining a certain kind of experience.

-------

The shaman basically is an exemplar, a model, for how to be. Not simply how to be in the psychedelic or the trance state, but how to be in the act of wooing; how to be in the act of hunting, child-rearing, so forth. It’s a kind of exemplar that bursts through cultural conditioning. Cultural conditioning is like bad software. Over and over, it’s diddled with and rewritten so that it can just run on the next attempt! But there is cultural hardware, and it’s that cultural hardware – otherwise known as authentic being – that we are propelled toward by the example of the shaman and the techniques of the shaman. You know, if someone tells you that vast spiritual riches await you if you will but give up sex, interesting food, and your own thoughts for 10 or 15 years, and follow along with them, then something will be attained; this is no challenge to most of us, because we have our lives to lead, mortgages to pay, children to feed, car payments… but if someone tells you, “Eat this plant, and you will come into your birthright”, that’s a real existential challenge. The excuse that it’s difficult, or unattainable, has been removed. There can no longer be shilly-shallying around that issue. Shamanism therefore is a call to authenticity.
Well, then the last point that I want to make – this authenticity is generally presented, and has generally been presented throughout the evolution of the psychedelic movement in the United States, as a kind of personal integrity – a kind of psychological health, as though you had confronted all your demons and slain them, and you are now balanced, or individuated, or whole – something like that. That’s true; that is the first stage of the shamanic integration. But that is not the goal of the shamanic integration, otherwise it just becomes a kind of chemically assisted psychotherapy. The goal is then, having attained that balance, that wisdom, and that connection, to then rise up to a level of universal meaning. In other words, to break through the machinery of cultural conditioning in the same way that the shaman does, and to attempt to discover something authentic – something authentic outside the self-generated language cloud.

The shaman is not merely a sick man, or a madman; he is a sick man who has healed himself.'-terence mckenna

MT: Terence, the kind of knowledge and kind of information you're putting forward is... is not generally available. It's not the kind of information or knowledge that one would find in the typical academic anthropology curriculum um, and yet it seems to be um, a knowledge that uh, is ever expanding but somehow it's outside of the cultural institutional entities in some way. Um, number one, why do you think that's the case? Of course there's a logical answer to that one but um, what do you see as the future of this kind of information, this kind of knowledge?

TM: Well, I think in a sense it signals the rebirth of the institution of shamanism in the context of modern society and uh, anthropologists have always made the point about shaman that they were very important social catalysts in their group but they were always peripheral to it, peripheral to the political power and actually usually physically peripheral, living at some distance from the village. And uh, I think the uh, electronic shaman - the people who pursue these- the exploration of these spaces, exist to return to tell the rest of us about it- that we are now coming into a period of racial maturity as a species, where we can no longer have, uh, forbidden areas of the human mind or cultural uh, machinery. We have taken upon ourselves the acquisition of so much power that we now must understand what we are.

Uh, we cannot, uh, travel much further with the definitions of man that we inherit from the Judeo-Christian tradition. We need to truly explore the problem of consciousness because as man gains power he is becoming the defining fact on the planet, in the near-space area, so uh, the question that looms is "Is man good?" and then if he is, what is it he's good for? And, uh, the shaman will point the way because what they are, are, uh, visionaries, poets, cultural architects, forecasters, all these roles which we understand in more conventional terms rolled into one and raised to Nth power. They are cultural models for the rest of us. This has always been true. The shaman has access to a superhuman dimension and superhuman condition and by being able to do that he affirms the trans- the potential for transcendence in all people. He is an exemplar if you will. And I see the attention that's being given to these things signaling a sense on the part of the society that we need a return to these models. This is why, for instance, in the Star Wars phenomenon, Skywalker, Luke Skywalker - Skywalker is a direct translation of the word shaman out of the Tungusic, which is, S- where Siberian shamanism comes from. So these heroes that are being instilled in the heart of the culture are shamanic heroes - They control a force, which is uh, bigger than everybody and holds the galaxy together. This is true, as a matter of fact, and as we explore how true it is, the limitations of our previous worldview will be exposed for all to see. I think it was JBS Haldane who said uh, "The world may not only be stranger than we suppose, it may be stranger than we can suppose."

MT: I think of the chara-[clears throat] excuse me, the character Yoda...

TM: Right...

MT: ...as a shamanic type character.

TM: Very much so.

MT: As we talk about shamans and shamanism, again that brings up, uh, cross-cultural currents and um, do you see the, the shaman taking on a new uh, -certainly you don't see Indian shamans walking into metropolitan areas but do you see the shaman taking on a new form?

TM: Well I th- I believe along with Gordon Wasson and others, but in distinction to Mircea Eliade who was a major writer on shamanism, that um, it is hallucinogenic shamanism that is primary and that where shamanic techniques are used to the exclusion of uh, hallucinogenic drug ingestion the shamanism tends to be vitiated. It is more like a ritual enactment of what real shamanism is. So that, uh, uh, the shamanism that is coming to be is coming to be within people in our culture. Uh, the people who feel comfortable with psychedelic drugs and who, by going into those spaces and then returning with works of art, or poetic accounts, or scientific ideas, are actually changing the face of the culture. I connect the psychedelic dimension to the dimension of inspiration and dream. I think history has always, uh, progressed by the bubbling up of ideas from these nether dimensions into the minds of receptive men and women. It is simply that now with the hallucinogens we actually have a tool to push the button. We are no longer dependent upon uh, whatever factors it is that previously controlled the uh, ingression of novelty into human history. We have taken that function to ourselves and this will accelerate and uh, and uh, intensify the cultural crisis but I think in the end it will lead that much sooner to its resolution.

MT: So, as we uh, continue to, uh, move towards the further exploration of these spaces um, we uh, can expect that um, social change as a result? Personal change?

TM: Tremendous social change. I see in fact uh, what is happening is a tendency to uh, what I call 'turn the body inside out'. We are, through our media and cybernetics, we are actually approaching the point where consciousness can be experienced uh dis- uh, in a state of disconnection from the body. We have changed. We are no longer as I said, bipedal monkeys. We are instead a kind of cybernetic coral reef of organic components and inorganic technological components. We have become a force which takes unorganized raw material and excretes uh, technical objects. We have uh, transcended the normal definitions of man - we are like an enormous collective organism with our data banks, and our forecasting, uh, agencies, and our computer networks, and the many levels at which we are connected into the universe. Our self-image is changing. The monkey is uh, all but being left behind and shortly will be left behind.-terence mckenna

Terence McKenna - "Shamanism"

-eg

 

[travsha]

It isnt necessarily easy for shamans to navigate heavy altered states.... They have just developed a lot of commitment and fortitude. Generally shamans are getting attacked by what they clean off of their clients, so they are often getting hit real hard all the time.... They just persevere. I sit and train with a number of different shamans and they all acknowledge that sometimes they are super sick and need to puke or can barely stand and walk - but they keep on helping people.

One clue for how they navigate the altered state though.... They have guides and allies. This is one reason why shamans dont work with DMT but prefer plants instead. Plants are living and have consciousness and the shamans form relationships with that spirit. A San Pedro shamans always has San Pedro as a guide and ally to help them navigate the altered state.

They also gather other allies. Jaguar which you used as an example is very easy to understand - it has lots of power and is a good provider. It can stalk energy and spirits the way they stalk their prey. Jaguar eats heavy energy with its large jaws. Very similar to bear energy in North American shamanism actually..... Another spirit may be condor - similar to eagle in North America - it flies to the heavens and carries the prayers to God. It can see the path ahead and get guidance from the upper world.

And then there are many shamans that just work with plant spirits. The Shipibo for example do not work with animal spirits and if they see a jaguar in ceremony they assume it is dark energy to be cleaned. The work 100% with plant spirits. They form relationships with these plant spirits through extended dietas.

I think some things in shamanism will change, but not everything.... Things are always changing in some ways though. Some of those changes will be for the worse - like westerners trying to find shortcuts or ignoring the wisdom of those before them.... And some changes will be for the better - like offering more personal care to your clients, offering more help with integration, working on different issues caused by new changes in society ect....

One change I see for example is that people like me go to the Amazon and learn how to perform the dieta practice to connect with plants.... And then come home and apply that to local plants. We have powerful plant teachers up here like oak, cedar, blackberry, devils club ect..... But the techniques of working with them can be the same, just using local spirits instead of Amazonian ones. I learned how to sing in Shipibo and Quechua, but some people sing their songs in English and they can work just as well. The technique is the same though, and not much changes here.... Even in the Amazon they sing in all of their unique tribal languages and they use all their local plants - just more plants and languages are being used as more cultures want to learn the old ways.

 

[anne halonium]

Jaguar which you used as an example is very easy to understand

"jaguarette" is my shamanette alter ego.

i always played it like this,
" i get super psychedelic trashed,and speak the truth i dare not say otherwise"
^ it plays like divine genius, but its just stoned honesty and clarity.

all the other shaman song and dance is theatre IMO.
its drugs and charisma , with a show .
if your good at it, your a shaman, if your bad at it , your just a stoner in the audience.
cultural mileage will vary.

 

[travsha]

all the other shaman song and dance is theatre IMO.
its drugs and charisma , with a show .
if your good at it, your a shaman, if your bad at it , your just a stoner in the audience.
cultural mileage will vary.

Have you ever sat in ceremony with a real traditional style shaman? Ever had one work on you?

There is a lot more to it then a show. A lot more.

Many of them dont use psychedelics.... Or only the shaman takes them and then sings to their patients who are sober. And I have seen them cure cancer, epilepsy, diabetes.... Hard to think of toher shows curing those kinds of illness.

But it is a common misconception about this type of work that it is all fake.... Of course, this misconception doesnt really explain anything - like the amazing effectiveness of the work.

 

[anne halonium]

been around the world 3 x
much of it third world,
and most of it on drugs ( halluciongens)

been to alot of medicine shows.
never saw anyone cured of anything without proper medicine.

was taken to see a jungle holy man in mindano once.
he produced 2 large river stones.
one jet black and one snow white.
and he asked.........
" wich stone are you young lady?"

i pointed out the window at a mountain and said,
" that stone"

he smiled and said," you dont need me, you may go."

seriously, when i go visit aborigines,
im not there for for stone age song and dance.
they just wanna touch my hair..............
aint everyday barbie swoops your village.
get hopping i like water buffalo steaks.

some go for the blessing.
i go to bless them.
i even bless livestock and crops .....N/C

not being flip here, just recounting the way its been for me.
the path of others may vary.

annie doesnt pilgrimage, i tour.

are we chasing indians, or are we leading the way in the new age?

 

[DmnStr8]

:?:

 

[travsha]

been around the world 3 x
much of it third world,
and most of it on drugs ( halluciongens)

been to alot of medicine shows.
never saw anyone cured of anything without proper medicine.

was taken to see a jungle holy man in mindano once.
he produced 2 large river stones.
one jet black and one snow white.
and he asked.........
" wich stone are you young lady?"

i pointed out the window at a mountain and said,
" that stone"

he smiled and said," you dont need me, you may go."

seriously, when i go visit aborigines,
im not there for for stone age song and dance.
they just wanna touch my hair..............
aint everyday barbie swoops your village.
get hopping i like water buffalo steaks.

some go for the blessing.
i go to bless them.
i even bless livestock and crops .....N/C

not being flip here, just recounting the way its been for me.
the path of others may vary.

annie doesnt pilgrimage, i tour.

are we chasing indians, or are we leading the way in the new age?

Said a lot without saying anything.... Good way to avoid a question

Never heard of a medicine show before. That is a new one to me.

 

[anne halonium]

dead on sights like always.
my apologies if ya missed it.
id suggest serious global travel as a cure.
( shamanettes RX .....N/C)

when your entourage and guides are surrounded,
and, they have to beat back throngs of natives with sticks,
just cuz they want to touch your hair.......
then youll see where im at on this.

ill admit, i went to see natives and learn.
only to realize, i was the attraction.

ive inspired whole villages to feast with a queens wave from a landrover.
after a point, ya realize THEY want to rise to our level of cool.
not the learning i expected, but definitely my kind of education!

once again, who rules, alchemists or indians?
discover thyself, save the commute, welcome the pilgrims to our world.

*** note
i know everyone thinks annie is a buzzkill on this,
but lets consider the differences between 3rd world drug tourist hucksters in second world villages,
VS. ACTUAL aborigines that rarely see outsiders at all ,
and, who are truly primeval stone age.

going to some backwater in SA to some aya medicine show,
is really not far off from seeing
indian gator wrestling off the highway in florida cicra 1965

theres a massive difference between second world poser natives,
and actual hard core aborigines.
my personal test was, whats the chances of being eaten?
im dead eye serious on this.
and for real,
if you guys ever get past rural third worlders, to where the real natives are,
ask them if they wanna come to the 1st world and eat acid.
even the most primitive have heard of marlboro cigs, bud beer, coca cola , and LSD from america.........
im not kidding here.


im anne halonium, you had better bet i talked to aborigines about drugs in america.
anything less would sooooooo not be me.

and really, whos the holiest native anyway?
is this like picking the best amish for barn building?
if were talking primitives and drugs,
obviously " stone age" does equate stone age in this case for validity. right?
if ya dont have to hire a translator/ guide , just to get there,
i mean really, peeps have spritual experiences at niagra falls.

i see drug tourist stuff , and to me its flat out hype.
as nexians, were pry the elite of the hallucinogenic alchemists / shamans.
quit being so humble and romantic.
were beyond that , and we set the tone for the globe.
we can enjoy the cultural sideshows of the past in an indiana jones fashion indeed.
but in the end, we lead, cuz we have the teks, the experience, the power products, and the communications / infrastructure/ education........and just plain cleaner water.

therefore, ya the shaman types are entertaining and all,
but really, what do they have we dont have?.
id suggest as nexians of the 1st world, we have it all already.
and, isnt it our obligation to set the new standards and uplift THEM?

*** wanna have some fun folks?
we invite all the third world shaman we can find to a nexus arena show.
pick 3 bands.

 

[travsha]

Avoiding the question still, so my guess is that no, you have not sat in and participated in a traditional shamanic ceremony. Since you wont answer I must assume (I did ask twice first though). Best to save opinions and judgement till you have personal experience.

Not all the shamans I study under work with psychedelics of any kind. I often work with the Q'ero tribe - I have seen them heal terminal patients with nothing but condor feathers. How is that a show? How is a sick person being well again fake to you?

I dont travel with an entourage or guides.... I go my own way with just my wife as company. We get far off the tourist path all the time - people look at us weird at first, but after a few weeks or months of us staying with them they get used to us. I dont have any hair for them to touch though - I shave my head. If they want to rub it I really dont care - just something for me to laugh about.

Funny you think you are so much more gifted then the tribal shamans because you post on an internet forum.... You been curing illness lately? Better at healing then the shamans curing cancer, diabetes, paralysis and HIV? (I know shamans that have cured each of those in people that I personally knew before they were cured) It's no big deal if you havent - but just saying that if you havent, maybe you dont want to pretend you are better then those who have.... Not that they are better then you either - but just pointing out that maybe they have a skill-set that you dont understand yet.

I dont normally like to call people out. But you seem really interested in talking yourself up by trying to tear down people you dont even know.

 

[anne halonium]

traditional shamanic ceremony.

^im anne halonium.
you better bet i ate lophs with indians in the 70s wholesale.
how vomity in the SW do ya wanna be about this.

I dont travel with an entourage or guides....

you should its how you can really get out in the stix and survive.
and once again best natives, are in the real woods.

You been curing illness lately? Better at healing then the shamans curing cancer, diabetes, paralysis and HIV? (I know shamans that have cured each of those in people that I personally knew before they were cured) It's no big deal if you havent -

palease.
"without med documentation, im gonna call heresy.
as we dont operate like that in the first world."

i am flattered though.
i play down the divine thing, especially with lophs

I dont normally like to call people out.

trav,
all the love,
but you cant possibly suggest
anne halonium is clueless on indians and hallucinogens (LOPHS)
in my world , aya is for people who cant eat lophs with the big kids.
^ just saying it from my humble perspective.
isnt everyone born NAC?
am i not the greatest heretic EVER with lophs.
i fell out of grace with those guys before lophs were almost extinct.
and they are almost extinct now.

no one who knows me could possibly wonder why i crusade on lophs and indian religion.

your not calling anyone out anyway...........

" anne halonium.........
sure ive tripped with indians.
i trip with anyone i could get at globally
for over 35 yrs ....did i miss anyone?"

im simply taking the position that the 1st world masters,
are the defacto masters now of the globe.
translate :nexians and our ilk rule.

and i think we can take the spritual high ground on this.
its an opinion im strong on from experience,
your mileage may vary.

 

[universecannon]

I'm not sure if there is enough room in this ego filled thread for me to fit in a short post... But eating loads of psychedelics doesn't make you a shaman. People seem to always forget that it is primarily about healing others (just feeding them psychedelics doesn't count).

 

[anne halonium]

you act as if not one of the people i met over decades globally werent enriched?
how bold of you.

i dont have the ego to make such MEDICAL claims.......
my mom is a doctor, she would smack me.
dont even pin medical heresy on me.
i always stand for first world safety and medical :thumb_up:
anne halonium, looking out for you!

^ that said, gimme a bong and ill x ray your skeleton!

but, OMG i am flattered.
( gawd i cant say it)
i just settle for loph girl incarnate.
i live it.
i wanted to be a housewife when i grew up.
and then some old indian fed me a loph.
for a few years as needed.
oops.

this is really a fun thread.
lets not get it shut down,
i am most interested in this topic.

how many indians do ya have to trip with
until your the master of tripping with indians?

for the record,
im simple about this,
the most advanced psychonauts are the first world wonders.
and yes we have WIFI ........hi guys.
now lets lead and not argue?

 

[universecannon]

So the self-proclaimed shamanette heals people...somehow via techniques beyond just feeding them psychedelics...but can't tell us anything about it because they don't make "medical claims"....

Convenient :roll:

 

[dreamer042]

 

[anne halonium]

sorry universe.
i trip with peeps.
indians are on the roster.
i dont do medical claims.
never have , never will.

but i suspect someone consumes my work with glee.
im famous for alot of little lophs.
ever wonder why ya never see a big one........?

and shrooms are just a hobby.
lophs are my religion.

and i was totally serious.
ive tripped with indians.
i trip with humanity.
i missed the difference.
maybe someone has a scorecard i dont have?
how much fast chant and sweat with indians do ya want.
and i can assure all, not every lodge opens the flap to miracles at dawn.

once again,
i offer that the first world psychonauts/ alchemists,
hold the high ground. now.

dont anyone turn this into elitist annie.
im saying were all better than the hype.
how democratic of me.

 

[Psilosopher?]

The shaman does not heal. The shaman allows one to heal themselves. The plants are shamans themselves. They also allow people to heal themselves.

I'm a bit skeptical about those shamans curing cancer and stuff. Even the placebo effect has it's limits, but who knows? Maybe it doesn't. If shamans can cure cancer, then why are we wasting time with cancer research (which I think is a waste of time anyway)?

 

[ganesh]

Lol....

One things for sure, if you want to apprentice as a Curandero in the Amazonian regions, then you're gonna have to 'diet' various plants in seclusion for days, weeks, months. You're gonna have to learn icaros, and become masterful at using tobacco, and drinking Ayahuasca, being able to see disease, suck it out, hold ceremony, sing protective arcanas, prescribe suitable plant remedies, ect, etc...

One thing that struck me about those ceremonies was that it is serious work, and is also a beautiful kind of 'living tradition', even with the Westernised twists. Certainly, in the most respectful way i do believe that those who haven't attended such ceremonies and drink at home, are without a doubt missing a lot of what a ceremony is all about; Where is the Curandero, arcana, icaros, holding space?... where is the hands on healing?

Whilst many might drink alone at home, listen to recorded icaros, smoke tobacco, and enjoy the headspace and Aya's natural healing ability, they are missing out on much more of the healing potential when used with a trained Curandero who's dieted plants and taken upon their spirits. There is simply no comparison.

People who drink alone at home, may be in for a shock if they do attend a ceremony with a trained Curandero, and realise that they are but kindergarden kids drinking with masters who have years of trained abilities that they have none of....:surprised

I have to agree with a lot of what Travsha says.