From: hawksmoor@dial.pipex.com (Julia Hawkes-Moore) Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body Subject: Shamanism Date: Thu, 09 Dec 1999 16:29:44 GMT Organization: UUNET WorldCom server (post doesn't reflect views of UUNET WorldCom Lines: 78 Message-ID: <384fcfc3.779605@news.dial.pipex.com> Reply-To: hawksmoor@dial.pipex.com NNTP-Posting-Host: userbi45.uk.uudial.com X-Trace: lure.pipex.net 944754454 26424 62.188.143.109 (9 Dec 1999 15:47:34 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@uk.uu.net NNTP-Posting-Date: 9 Dec 1999 15:47:34 GMT X-Newsreader: Forte Free Agent 1.1/16.230 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!newspeer.te.net!news.indigo.ie!diablo.theplanet.net!newsfeed.icl.net!nntp.news.xara.net!xara.net!gxn.net!tank.news.pipex.net!pipex!tube.news.pipex.net!pipex!not-for-mail On Wed, 01 Dec 1999 19:34:22 -0800, Lissa wrote: >TienYen wrote: >> Julia, you may have described both your studies and experiences before >> (I've only been here 3 months). I'm sure many people would be glad to >> hear about them if you cared to post. On a different thread, of course. >I absolutely second that! The practices of shamanism in particular sounds >like a fascinating subject. Of course, compared to many of you , I am still only a beginner here, but for the last two years I have done a great deal of study and practice trying to explain to myself how OBEs and other psychic phenomena which I have experienced are happening. During the last thirty-odd years I have tried hard to make sense of it all, albeit in a dilettante manner! I've attended classes, workshops and meditation groups, and even led a few myself. I have regularly received and given healing, both 'first hand' and remote. I've read just about every book mentioned on this newsgroup plus a few. I have seen and communicated with ghosts. I have taken and rejected drugs and alcohol. I have discovered the startling and underestimated power of telepathy to read the minds of other people, both close by and at a distance. I have satisfactorily predicted the future in Tarot readings. I've had particular fun remote viewing and having 'proof' - to my satisfaction and those of the people I have succeeded in visiting - that the human consciousness can leave the body, travel instantly to another place, and report back what it observes there. Trying to make sense of all this, I have read philosophy, and investigated Anglican, Quaker and Spiritualist Christianity, Catharism, Traditional and Reform Judaism, dipped into Buddhism and Wicca, and skimmed over the baffling theories of Quantum Mechanics. I have studied Kundalini and Psychiatric texts. What currently makes more sense to me than anything else is what I have been able to read and practice of Shamanism. This is partly because Shamans appear in practically every geographical and historical human society, doing almost exactly the same strange things, however varied the society and culture around them. From Nigerian or Brazilian jungles, Australian or Saharan deserts, Mongolian or Siberian steppes, North or South American prairies, Arctic wastes to English villages, Shamans have a peripheral role as healers, madmen, philosophers and teachers, respected, admired and feared, and generally misunderstood. Shamanism seems an essentially human and fallible system of ethics; no shaman is a Pope or hero, all are equal, all can get things wrong, all are learning constantly. They have no clubs or churches, preferring individual existence amongst their families, usually in remote rural places. Storytelling and communing with nature illustrates their work. They create and animate new thought-forms. Out-of-body-travel is routine and vital to their practices. Men and women can equally be practitioners. Shamans also have fun. An astute description of Shamans is found in 'Thorson's Principles of Shamanism' by Leo Rutherford. There are two distinct paths to enlightenment: the 'Via Negativa' or negative path of renunciation or self-denial, and the 'Via Positiva' or path of involvement in the world and the senses. The 'Via Negativa' includes yoga, monastery life - the path of the nun or monk or hermit, denial of the body, the senses, sexuality, the flesh, the Earth. The age-old respectable path of getting off the wheel of life entirely. But it can become puritanical and sees the earth and all things material as evil. The sole purpose becomes to 'sit on the right hand of God in paradise'. The Earth and its pollution and cruelties don't matter so long as 'I' can get to heaven. Extremists of this path are a danger to those who wish to enjoy living on this Earth. The 'Via Positiva ' is the Shamanistic or Tantric path. Enlightenment comes through learning to work with the senses and with many states of consciousness - not just the 'official five ' senses. We are part of Earth, not seperate. Heavaen is here and now and so is Hell, according to how we manage our reality. We are spirit beings placed here to learn. We are supposed to look after our Mother Earth and nuture her, not degrade her with greed and sensual debauchery, which is the degenerate side of this path. We are animated by the love of others and of ourselves, not just by the love of God. We celebrate earth and our bodies as the temple of the divine. Also, Shamans throw good parties! Love from Julia.