Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

So... who's a shamanist?

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • So... who's a shamanist?

    Consider this the shamanism roll-call... who practices shamanism? Do you call yourself a shaman or a shamanist or a shamanic practitioner? Are you a core-shamanist or a classical shaman/ist? Or do you just use the techniques to enrich your spirituality without it being the primary focus? Where/how did you learn? What cultural context do you operate within? Who are we and what makes us interested in this board?!

    Introductions, people... so that we can kick off this fabulous new board and generate some topics...



    (Sorry if I'm messing up your organisation, Thal... I just wanted to be the first to post in the new Shamanism board )

  • #2
    Re: So... who's a shamanist?

    Originally posted by Rae'ya View Post
    Consider this the shamanism roll-call... who practices shamanism? Do you call yourself a shaman or a shamanist or a shamanic practitioner? Are you a core-shamanist or a classical shaman/ist? Or do you just use the techniques to enrich your spirituality without it being the primary focus? Where/how did you learn? What cultural context do you operate within? Who are we and what makes us interested in this board?!

    Introductions, people... so that we can kick off this fabulous new board and generate some topics...



    (Sorry if I'm messing up your organisation, Thal... I just wanted to be the first to post in the new Shamanism board )
    Definitely NOT a Shamanist, but I utilise some "Shamanic" techniques in my practice - i.e., primarily Shamanic journey in order to liaise with my Divinities and Spirit helpers within the Otherworlds.

    Comment


    • #3
      Originally posted by Rae'ya View Post
      Consider this the shamanism roll-call... who practices shamanism? Do you call yourself a shaman or a shamanist or a shamanic practitioner? Are you a core-shamanist or a classical shaman/ist? Or do you just use the techniques to enrich your spirituality without it being the primary focus? Where/how did you learn? What cultural context do you operate within? Who are we and what makes us interested in this board?!

      Introductions, people... so that we can kick off this fabulous new board and generate some topics...

      (Sorry if I'm messing up your organisation, Thal... I just wanted to be the first to post in the new Shamanism board )
      Still slowly reading Neolithic Shamanism and kicking myself for not working on the practises more.

      Honestly that book just makes sense to me.
      ThorSon's milkshake brings all the PF girls to the yard - Volcaniclastic

      RIP

      I have never been across the way
      Seen the desert and the birds
      You cut your hair short
      Like a shush to an insult
      The world had been yelling
      Since the day you were born
      Revolting with anger
      While it smiled like it was cute
      That everything was shit.

      - J. Wylder

      Comment


      • #4
        Re: So... who's a shamanist?

        I call myself a Shamanic Practitioner with Hedge Rider / Witch influences. Don't really do Core Shamanism as I don't believe one can separate the social / cultural and ethical influences out of something while staying true to what the practices pertain to.
        I'm Only Responsible For What I Say Not For What Or How You Understand!

        Comment


        • #5
          Re: So... who's a shamanist?

          I'm a core shamanist because I believe you can separate technology (meaning techniques for achieving the altered state of conciousness necessary for spiritual journeying and communication with other dimensions) from culture. And sometimes you encounter beings and discover things about yourself that you'd never imagine if you were following one specific cultural path.
          The forum member formerly known as perzephone. Or Perze. I've shed a skin.

          Comment


          • #6
            Re: So... who's a shamanist?

            Lol, its a_ok! I can't do some of the work I wanted to, because Toaster the Craptop is being put back to factory settings while I wait for the new screen for PhaedraSprocket (my laptop). I'm on my phone instead, and admin stuff on phone is too tedious for me! ...like setting up a LHP board (that is next in The Plan)


            As for the premise of the post, I use some techniques of Core Shamanism (I agree with Perze that the tech is separatable from the culture...I think the only parts that are "lost" are culturally specific symbolisim and imagery that belongs to those cultures anyhow, and can't be fully appreciated/understood by those outside of them in the first place--including people of the same ethnicity raise outside of the same culture which is why the history of taking kids and....nevermind, while interesting, its way off topic). Also, I dont use the techniques to the same ends as many, anyhow...
            “You have never answered but you did not need to. If I stand at the ocean I can hear you with your thousand voices. Sometimes you shout, hilarious laughter that taunts all questions. Other nights you are silent as death, a mirror in which the stars show themselves. Then I think you want to tell me something, but you never do. Of course I know I have written letters to no-one. But what if I find a trident tomorrow?" ~~Letters to Poseidon, Cees Nooteboom

            “We still carry this primal relationship to the Earth within our consciousness, even if we have long forgotten it. It is a primal recognition of the wonder, beauty, and divine nature of the Earth. It is a felt reverence for all that exists. Once we bring this foundational quality into our consciousness, we will be able to respond to our present man-made crisis from a place of balance, in which our actions will be grounded in an attitude of respect for all of life. This is the nature of real sustainability.”
            ~~Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

            "We are the offspring of history, and must establish our own paths in this most diverse and interesting of conceivable universes--one indifferent to our suffering, and therefore offering us maximal freedom to thrive, or to fail, in our own chosen way."
            ~~Stephen Jay Gould, Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History

            "Humans are not rational creatures. Now, logic and rationality are very helpful tools, but there’s also a place for embracing our subjectivity and thinking symbolically. Sometimes what our so-called higher thinking can’t or won’t see, our older, more primitive intuition will." John Beckett

            Pagan Devotionals, because the wind and the rain is our Bible
            sigpic

            Comment


            • #7
              Re: So... who's a shamanist?

              Originally posted by thalassa View Post
              ...like setting up a LHP board (that is next in The Plan)...
              Ohhh!!

              Comment


              • #8
                Re: So... who's a shamanist?

                Wait a sec, there's a Plan? What madness is this? You'll summon Murphy and doom us all.

                DOOM!!!
                "It is not simply enough to know the light…a Jedi must feel the tension between the two sides of the Force…in himself and in the universe."
                ―Thon

                "When to the Force you truly give yourself, all you do expresses the truth of who you are,"

                Yoda

                Yoda told stories, and ate, and cried, and laughed: and the Padawans saw that life itself was a lightsaber in his hands; even in the face of treachery and death and hopes gone cold, he burned like a candle in the darkness. Like a star shining in the black eternity of space.

                Yoda: Dark Rendezvous

                "But those men who know anything at all about the Light also know that there is a fierceness to its power, like the bare sword of the law, or the white burning of the sun." Suddenly his voice sounded to Will very strong, and very Welsh. "At the very heart, that is. Other things, like humanity, and mercy, and charity, that most good men hold more precious than all else, they do not come first for the Light. Oh, sometimes they are there; often, indeed. But in the very long run the concern of you people is with the absolute good, ahead of all else..."

                John Rowlands, The Grey King by Susan Cooper

                "You come from the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve", said Aslan. "And that is both honour enough to erect the head of the poorest beggar, and shame enough to bow the shoulders of the greatest emperor on earth; be content."

                Aslan, Prince Caspian by CS Lewis


                Comment


                • #9
                  Re: So... who's a shamanist?

                  Originally posted by Ophidia View Post
                  I'm a core shamanist because I believe you can separate technology (meaning techniques for achieving the altered state of conciousness necessary for spiritual journeying and communication with other dimensions) from culture. And sometimes you encounter beings and discover things about yourself that you'd never imagine if you were following one specific cultural path.
                  Same here.

                  I generally don't bother putting names to things that I don't have to talk about (I'm not big on defining the undefinable - seems so futile), so you can call me a Utilitarian Shammi, if you like.
                  Every moment of a life is a horrible tragedy, a slapstick comedy, dark nihilism, golden illumination, or nothing at all; depending on how we write the story we tell ourselves.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Re: So... who's a shamanist?

                    I call myself an altomesayoq and I primarily focus on Peruvian shamanism techniques and teachings but mix in other cultures and influences here and there. I studied under a teacher, off and on, since I was thirteen until I was twenty five. Off and on because she lives on the other side of the country and so there was traveling involved...but we met while we still lived in the same state.
                    “Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted. And experience is often the most valuable thing you have to offer.”
                    ― Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture
                    Sneak Attack
                    Avatar picture by the wonderful and talented TJSGrimm.

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Re: So... who's a shamanist?

                      Well, I'm a Hedgewitch, and that has some shamanistic influences, but no, don't call myself a Shaman. Although once upon a time, for a brief period, I called myself Shamanic Witch. But Hedgewitch works best for me. I haven't specifically studied Shamanism by itself, but I just haven't found any books that I feel are legit. I'm always super iffy about em, because I just don't know any good authors on the subject. So if yall have any suggestions, that'd be wonderful.

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Originally posted by Juniper View Post
                        I call myself an altomesayoq and I primarily focus on Peruvian shamanism techniques and teachings but mix in other cultures and influences here and there. I studied under a teacher, off and on, since I was thirteen until I was twenty five. Off and on because she lives on the other side of the country and so there was traveling involved...but we met while we still lived in the same state.
                        Ive always wondered about that term. How did you get into it?
                        ThorSon's milkshake brings all the PF girls to the yard - Volcaniclastic

                        RIP

                        I have never been across the way
                        Seen the desert and the birds
                        You cut your hair short
                        Like a shush to an insult
                        The world had been yelling
                        Since the day you were born
                        Revolting with anger
                        While it smiled like it was cute
                        That everything was shit.

                        - J. Wylder

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Re: So... who's a shamanist?

                          It's amazing who pops out of the woodwork when you give us our own board

                          Myself, I don't often use the terms 'shamanist' or 'shamanic practitioner', but they do technically apply. I actually don't really name that part of my practice... it's just there, under-running everything else. I operate within a Northern cultural context, and my ideas about the soul, the fylgja and faring forth (journeying) are generally tied up within that context but also extend well beyond it. I primarily do Innerworlds work... which is a term coined by an old friend of mine to describe all the shamanic stuff we do in our own inner landscape rather than in the external Otherworlds. I have done some Otherworlds journeys, but thus far am restricted to only a few locations.

                          Over the years it has seemed to me that a large part of what neo-pagan shamanists are doing nowdays is Innerworlds work, but no one had really named it before, except for unnecessarily derogatory terms like 'personal Disney ride'. I also believe this is part of the divide between classic shamanists and core-shamanists... that our terminology does not allow for these differences in practice, and so many classic shamanists and shamans feel that they are somehow doing a more pure or a better form of shamanism while core shamanists are just pretenders, which is not entirely true.

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Re: So... who's a shamanist?

                            Originally posted by Rae'ya View Post
                            Over the years it has seemed to me that a large part of what neo-pagan shamanists are doing nowdays is Innerworlds work, but no one had really named it before, except for unnecessarily derogatory terms like 'personal Disney ride'. I also believe this is part of the divide between classic shamanists and core-shamanists... that our terminology does not allow for these differences in practice, and so many classic shamanists and shamans feel that they are somehow doing a more pure or a better form of shamanism while core shamanists are just pretenders, which is not entirely true.
                            It took me a long time to stop hating myself. I always felt like I should deny the part of me that wanted to communicate with the land and its energy, or avoid ASCs because of cultural misappropriation & disrespect... and because I couldn't ever tell anyone that the land talked to me because they would assume I was an interloper & didn't belong.

                            Eventually, though, the land & the spirits won out. If the spirits accept me, if they approach me, if they accept my offerings, it doesn't matter what other humans think as long as I'm not being an ass or directly misrepresenting who and what I am to bilk tourists.

                            And once I started investigating more archaeology & anthropology it became apparent that every one has had some form of shamanic technology in their past, and that it isn't just cultural or ethnic. It's genetic. It's in the human DNA to seek the numinous and Otherworldly. Why else would all our brains (or at least the brains of us who are responsive and so inclined) respond to the same methods to achieve contact with the spiritual?
                            The forum member formerly known as perzephone. Or Perze. I've shed a skin.

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Re: So... who's a shamanist?

                              Originally posted by Ophidia View Post
                              It took me a long time to stop hating myself. I always felt like I should deny the part of me that wanted to communicate with the land and its energy, or avoid ASCs because of cultural misappropriation & disrespect... and because I couldn't ever tell anyone that the land talked to me because they would assume I was an interloper & didn't belong.

                              Eventually, though, the land & the spirits won out. If the spirits accept me, if they approach me, if they accept my offerings, it doesn't matter what other humans think as long as I'm not being an ass or directly misrepresenting who and what I am to bilk tourists.

                              And once I started investigating more archaeology & anthropology it became apparent that every one has had some form of shamanic technology in their past, and that it isn't just cultural or ethnic. It's genetic. It's in the human DNA to seek the numinous and Otherworldly. Why else would all our brains (or at least the brains of us who are responsive and so inclined) respond to the same methods to achieve contact with the spiritual?
                              I tend to agree, which is why, even though I'm technically a classic shamanist, I am not anti-core-shamanism. It's also why I don't run in neo-shamanist circles anymore... the community at large is often snarky and elitist, and I just don't like that. I've seen and spoken to self-identified classic shamanists who are committing blatant cultural appropriation, as well as core shamanists who are ostractised but incredibly respectful and spiritual in their practice.

                              It's also why I split hairs when I talk about Otherworlds work, Innerworlds work and Thisworld work. Because from what I've seen, people squabble needlessly over 'your journey isn't a real journey' or 'you're not really in the Otherworlds' or 'you're not really a shamanist because you follow Michael Harner'. Well at the end of the day, we are ALL influenced by Harner and his devotees, simply because he was one of the anthropologists who bought shamanism to the rest of the world. And we are ALL committing a level of cultural appropriation from an extant culture by using the term 'shaman' and it's modern derivative 'shamanism'. And the majority of us who work within a cultural context were not BORN into that cultural context, which means that we are appropriating or reconstructing something that we were not originally immersed. So where does that leave the community? Squabbling with each other over who is or isn't legitimate, all the while committing hypocrisy and elitism while hemorrhaging people who don't want to be involved in the pettiness.

                              My terminology is an attempt to avoid that, and to reconcile classic and core shamanism into something that is not about 'I have cultural context and you don't' but about what we are actually DOING with our practices. But I still get people squabbling and getting defensive or elitist. I don't use the term myself, but I'm a 'classic shamanist' who works primarily in the Innerworlds or Thisworld. I do very little Otherworlds work, and I hold many of the same opinions about who should or shouldn't be doing Otherworlds work that many elitist neo-shamanists do. I just recognise that Innerworlds and Thisworld work is just as important and spiritual, if not more so, than Otherworlds work.

                              - - - Updated - - -

                              An afterthought... I don't believe that the land and landvaettir belong to anyone, even to indigenous peoples. Yes, indigenous peoples were on that land first, but I don't actually believe that gives them sole rights to work with the land. It bothers me that many of us who work with landvaettir and with animal spirits are automatically lumped into the interloper and/or culturally appropriative camp, when we have a practice that is completely divorced from any indigenous cultural context or terminology. I don't use the term 'totem' because it's appropriative and it didn't even originally describe what we use it for now... but I still feel like there is this perception that being a shamanist who works with animal guides and physical animal parts is considered a 'Native American' thing. It's not.

                              Cultural appropriation matters to me, which is why I'm very careful about the terminology that I use and the research that I do. But the reality is that many shamanic techniques and elements are common to multiple cultures. It is possible for someone to work with land spirits and animal spirits, and to hold a 'sense of place' sacred, without appropriating from the indigenous cultures who just happened to have similar opinions.

                              Comment

                              Working...
                              X