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<blockquote data-quote="Yaarel" data-source="post: 7613101" data-attributes="member: 58172"><p><span style="font-size: 15px"><span style="color: #0000FF"><strong>What is shamanism?</strong></span></span></p><p></p><p>"</p><p>I traveled to Indonesia on a research grant to study the relation between magic and medicine, among the sorcerers, Dukuns, of the Indonesian archipelago, and later among the Dzankris, shamans of Nepal.</p><p></p><p>But the focus of my research shifted from magical techniques in medicine toward the relationship between traditional magic and the animate natural world.</p><p></p><p>None of the island sorcerers in Indonesia, nor any of the Dzankris in Nepal considered their work as healers to be their major function within their communities. Most of them, to be sure, were the primary healers for villages in their vicinity, and spoken of as such by the inhabitants.</p><p></p><p>But the villagers also sometimes spoke of them, in low voices, as witches (‘Lejaks’ in Bali), as dark magicians who at night might be practicing their healing spells backward in order to afflict people. Such suspicions seemed fairly common in Indonesia, often with regard to the most effective healers. It was assumed that a magician, in order to expel malevolent influences must have a strong understanding of those influences, even a close rapport.</p><p></p><p>I myself never saw any of those magicians or shamans engage in magic for harmful purposes, nor evidence that they had ever done so. Yet I was struck by the fact that NONE of them said anything to counter such disturbing rumors.</p><p></p><p>Slowly, I came to recognize it was through such rumors, and the ambiguous fears, that the sorcerers were able to maintain a basic level of privacy. If not [for] fears, they would come to obtain magical help for every little malady. The sorcerer would be swamped from morning to night. By allowing the suspicions (and sometimes even encouraging such rumors), the sorcerer ensured that only those who were in profound need would dare to approach for help.</p><p></p><p>This privacy left the magician free to attend to [the self-described] primary function.</p><p></p><p>A clue to this function may be found in the circumstances that their dwellings are at the periphery of the community, beyond the edges of the village. For the magician in a traditional culture, it seems a spatial expression of [ones] symbolic position − mediating BETWEEN the human community and the larger community of [animistic] beings, upon which the village depends for sustenance.</p><p></p><p>This larger community includes with the humans the nonhuman entities that constitute the landscape − birds, mammals, fish that inhabit or migrate through the region, particular winds and weather patterns that inform the local geography, the landforms − forests, rivers, caves, mountains − that lend character to the surrounding earth.</p><p></p><p>The traditional shaman acts as an INTERMEDIARY between the human community and the larger ecological field, ensuring that there is an appropriate flow of nourishment, not just from the landscape to the human, but from the human back to the local earth.</p><p></p><p>By constant rituals, trances, ecstasies, and ‘journeys’, one ensures that the relation between human society and larger society is reciprocal. [So] that the village never takes more from the land than it returns to it − materially with propitiations, and praise. The scale of a harvest or hunt [is] always NEGOTIATED between the tribal community and the natural world.</p><p></p><p>To some extent, every adult in the community is engaged in this process of attuning to the other [animistic] presences. But the shaman is the exemplary voyager between the human and the more-than-human worlds. The primary negotiator.</p><p></p><p>The medicine persons primary allegiance is not to the human community, but to the web of relations in which that community is embedded. It is from this that his or her power to alleviate human illnesses derives. And this sets the local magician apart from other persons.</p><p></p><p>The traditional magician cultivates an ability to shift out of his or her common state of consciousness in order to make contact with the other forms of awareness, with which human existence is entwined. Only by temporarily shedding [human] culture can the sorcerer hope to enter into relation with other species on their own terms. By altering the common organization of senses, [one] will be able to enter into a rapport with the multiple nonhuman sensibilities that animate the local landscape.</p><p></p><p>This defines a shaman: the ability to readily slip out of the perceptual boundaries that demarcate his or her particular cultures − boundaries reinforced by customs, taboos, and language − in order to make contact with, and learn from, the other powers in the land. ‘Magic’ is precisely this heightened receptivity to the meaningful solicitations − songs, cries, gestures − of the larger more-than-human field.</p><p></p><p>Magic in its most primordial sense, is the experience of existing in a world made up of multiple [kinds of] intelligences. Every form one perceives − from the swallow swooping overhead to the blade of grass − is an experiencing entity with its own predilections and sensations, albeit sensations that are very different from our own [human sensations].</p><p></p><p>"</p><p></p><p><em>Abram, David (1996). The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-than-Human World.</em></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Yaarel, post: 7613101, member: 58172"] [SIZE=4][COLOR="#0000FF"][B]What is shamanism?[/B][/COLOR][/SIZE] " I traveled to Indonesia on a research grant to study the relation between magic and medicine, among the sorcerers, Dukuns, of the Indonesian archipelago, and later among the Dzankris, shamans of Nepal. But the focus of my research shifted from magical techniques in medicine toward the relationship between traditional magic and the animate natural world. None of the island sorcerers in Indonesia, nor any of the Dzankris in Nepal considered their work as healers to be their major function within their communities. Most of them, to be sure, were the primary healers for villages in their vicinity, and spoken of as such by the inhabitants. But the villagers also sometimes spoke of them, in low voices, as witches (‘Lejaks’ in Bali), as dark magicians who at night might be practicing their healing spells backward in order to afflict people. Such suspicions seemed fairly common in Indonesia, often with regard to the most effective healers. It was assumed that a magician, in order to expel malevolent influences must have a strong understanding of those influences, even a close rapport. I myself never saw any of those magicians or shamans engage in magic for harmful purposes, nor evidence that they had ever done so. Yet I was struck by the fact that NONE of them said anything to counter such disturbing rumors. Slowly, I came to recognize it was through such rumors, and the ambiguous fears, that the sorcerers were able to maintain a basic level of privacy. If not [for] fears, they would come to obtain magical help for every little malady. The sorcerer would be swamped from morning to night. By allowing the suspicions (and sometimes even encouraging such rumors), the sorcerer ensured that only those who were in profound need would dare to approach for help. This privacy left the magician free to attend to [the self-described] primary function. A clue to this function may be found in the circumstances that their dwellings are at the periphery of the community, beyond the edges of the village. For the magician in a traditional culture, it seems a spatial expression of [ones] symbolic position − mediating BETWEEN the human community and the larger community of [animistic] beings, upon which the village depends for sustenance. This larger community includes with the humans the nonhuman entities that constitute the landscape − birds, mammals, fish that inhabit or migrate through the region, particular winds and weather patterns that inform the local geography, the landforms − forests, rivers, caves, mountains − that lend character to the surrounding earth. The traditional shaman acts as an INTERMEDIARY between the human community and the larger ecological field, ensuring that there is an appropriate flow of nourishment, not just from the landscape to the human, but from the human back to the local earth. By constant rituals, trances, ecstasies, and ‘journeys’, one ensures that the relation between human society and larger society is reciprocal. [So] that the village never takes more from the land than it returns to it − materially with propitiations, and praise. The scale of a harvest or hunt [is] always NEGOTIATED between the tribal community and the natural world. To some extent, every adult in the community is engaged in this process of attuning to the other [animistic] presences. But the shaman is the exemplary voyager between the human and the more-than-human worlds. The primary negotiator. The medicine persons primary allegiance is not to the human community, but to the web of relations in which that community is embedded. It is from this that his or her power to alleviate human illnesses derives. And this sets the local magician apart from other persons. The traditional magician cultivates an ability to shift out of his or her common state of consciousness in order to make contact with the other forms of awareness, with which human existence is entwined. Only by temporarily shedding [human] culture can the sorcerer hope to enter into relation with other species on their own terms. By altering the common organization of senses, [one] will be able to enter into a rapport with the multiple nonhuman sensibilities that animate the local landscape. This defines a shaman: the ability to readily slip out of the perceptual boundaries that demarcate his or her particular cultures − boundaries reinforced by customs, taboos, and language − in order to make contact with, and learn from, the other powers in the land. ‘Magic’ is precisely this heightened receptivity to the meaningful solicitations − songs, cries, gestures − of the larger more-than-human field. Magic in its most primordial sense, is the experience of existing in a world made up of multiple [kinds of] intelligences. Every form one perceives − from the swallow swooping overhead to the blade of grass − is an experiencing entity with its own predilections and sensations, albeit sensations that are very different from our own [human sensations]. " [I]Abram, David (1996). The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-than-Human World.[/I] [/QUOTE]
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