A shaman is someone who is part of a non ordinary reality : “empirical reality; that is, the person interacts with it, sees it, touches it, hears it, feels it”. It is someone who can feel and see spirit by having an altered state of consciousness. He says 90% of shamans use conciouse changing techniques such as jumping, and only 10% use psychedelic drugs.
According to Michael Harner Shamaistic practices “coexists with established religions in many cultures.” He also says that it is typically practiced in cultures with a animism. He believes many people go to a Shamen when all else has failed, particularly a doctors prescription and that even if not everyone speaks to a shamen, everyone has a spirt and “When people get angry, jealous, or have a hostile emotional attitude, they can vent not only verbal and physical abuse, but spiritual abuse without even knowing it” and that we can therefore hurt others souls unconsciously.
I believe there are problems with believing in something you are studying. You will for one, have a very emic view of the situation. Although this is not nessecairily a bad thing, it is (in my opinion) good to get a combination of an emic and etic views of a situation. At some points Harner tries to pursue you to partake in these practices and really believe they work. This is much like Christian missionaries trying to convince the Hmong of god. There are always going to be biases when you are focusing on your own beliefs and when someone starts to practice it themselves, they are surly in for a surprise.
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Good read - I don't know about anyone else but I wouldn't mind meeting a Shaman in real life and see how they live and undertake their duties
ReplyDeleteDo shamans in most cultures use the same means to do their work? Like, do most use hallucinogens or songs or dance themselves into a frenzy?
ReplyDeleteWouldn't it be just fantastic to find out one day that their other planes of consciousness are just as or more real than our reality?
Nobody should be force to pertake in what you didnot believe. They that believe in Shaman should practice it and live wiyh it.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree (as you'll see in my post) that it is important for anthropoligist to use both etic and emic perspectives. I also think that there is huge ethical issues when it comes to missionaries attempts to convert people to their religion. Especially when almost every culture has their own religion and may not understand Christian concepts.
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