Shamans

I want to develop the idea of shamans, not as social leaders (like priests), but precicely as humans so wild that they carry with them knowledge of the fucked up.

I heard a theory from a theorist whose name I can't recall atm that Shamans where chosen precicely because they were weird, they had "seen shit."

I see shaman as reactions to the early development of the possibilities of the human, with respect to homo sapiens' continuing to evolve away from traditional animal-instinctuality and toward reason, ethics, intention, truth. I think the early days of this development, where it had almost no established soil upon which to secure itself, must have been extremely confusing and painful. Shaman likely were those individuals whose consciousness' were particularly attuned to these changes, and, because these changes were the new and unknown while that which was being changed-away-from was the old-established and known, reacted from the perspective of the old-established, which is to say from the pathological-passional animal instinctuality, by attempting to draw the new consciousness and its possibilities and implications back within the already known-comfortable. Shaman tried to legitimize the new consciousness, enfolding it within images, ideas, symbols that conformed to myths and stories that made sense to pre-human man. Rites would communicate and cohere these myths into the community.

Of course this role would have, for this "pre-human man", pushed the boundaries of his consciousness to the extreme. The shaman in a sense carried the weight of this evolution for the community, and this pain he had to release through insanity and intoxication.

The fact that these shaman survived as regular roles in ancient pre-rational, pre-civilized communities demonstrates or at least argues for the fact of their effectiveness and of the nexessity of these "mad" individuals and the important bonding and meaning-giving which they and their visions and madness provided.

Shamanism seems like a natural reaction to the emergence of the possibility of rational thought among pre-rational humanity. Even today, philosophers and truth-seekers still sometimes go insane from encountering the forward limit of this expanding conscious sphere.

Pezer wrote:

I want to develop the idea of shamans, not as social leaders (like priests), but precicely as humans so wild that they carry with them knowledge of the fucked up.

I heard a theory from a theorist whose name I can't recall atm that Shamans where chosen precicely because they were weird, they had "seen shit."

That is true; also, in some primitive cultures, if a child was perceived to be overly sensitive or a bit mad, they'd assume he had powers of communication with other realms.

First, Christianity banished the thinking about such other realms, then "science" (the new priesthood) made a point of not having witnessed them and thus proclaiming their non-existence; in the meantime, many millions of people are living in several parallel worlds of experience, trying to find their ways on their own; Shamanism will be called for more and more now that God is dead.

As I said somewhere else, the god who died is the one who denied the existence of all other gods, spirits, demons, etc. Now that His church is crumbled, we are entering a renewed pagan universe, in which priesthood and psychology will become the same terrain once more.

The period of Christianity, where the soul was supposed to be something different from the body, and indeed from the world, condemned Shamanism, and a 'will to be weird' in general.

It was Odin who hung from the tree and gave his eye for knowledge of what can't be seen. The god of the lands I come from was essentially shamanistic; a god not of all-potency and all-knowledge, but a seeker-god as the highest god.

Wisdom!

Pezer wrote:

I want to develop the idea of shamans, not as social leaders (like priests), but precicely as humans so wild that they carry with them knowledge of the fucked up.

I heard a theory from a theorist whose name I can't recall atm that Shamans where chosen precicely because they were weird, they had "seen shit."

It enhances their ontological immune system.
Through seeing shit one arrives at seeing through shit, and this helps avoid unnecessary avoidances. It helps penetrate faster to what really hurts.
The "splitting headache from which the future is born"
This is why the shaman needs the philosopher, who is after all the midwife of the future/beyond.

Some cultures today still hold to shamanistic structure of their society.

And yes, young people with advanced abilities, especially empathy, were and still are being chosen to be students of elder shamans to learn the way of the shaman.

Most places on the planet are unable to live within such societies. Too many people with too diverse societies.