We are all, in a sens, idolaters of this recent western cultural artifact called "shamanism"; we love, we cherish, we dedicate our self to it, but as much as we get involve, so little we have something to do with the original, indigenous shamanism; we've created a lie, an illusion and we keep doing it just because this is how our culture works... you don't practice shamanism to sell it and to achieve personal transformation, shamanism it happens to be practiced because the world has unmanageable situations and because life is precarious and unforeseeable , because some people (the shamans) are forced to talk to the spirits and to heal the sick people... they are not doing it for fun or for them, they are doing it because there are some forces beyond them that affects them. I'm not speaking about the "real" shamans, it does not matter this point of view, it only matters our illusion, our lie, our self-limitation. This is what I want to know about and I want to fight against.
My point is that the only accurate perspective or maybe the only "right" place of shamanism in our culture, can be found in the scholarly literature of ethnology, sociology, anthropology, psychology and history of religion, but not as a proclamation of scientific objectivity of our powerful western culture, but because this is the only really "fair" usage of this cultural artifact called "shamanism", meaning - the only aspect of our shamanic intelligibility that is not intentionally mixing indigenous culture with western culture, that is just acquiring information. I'm interested in scholarly literature at its most psychological or subjective (read it "weak") level, as a culture who tries not to conquer, to engulf another culture but just to understand it.
Note: this is an important shift of my search. Perhaps this blog will die or will become something else.
03.02.2009
I'm returning to this blog and leave it as it is, it's ok as it is...
I'll add some more links at the bottom.
30.12.2009
Nu mă interesează şi nu încerc să construiesc vreo teorie sofisticată sau vreun concept nou. Când m-am gândit la cuvântul "quasi-şaman" eram încă sub influenţa imaginilor şi spuselor lui Flavio şi a tatălui său. În inima pădurii amazoniene, ei vorbeau despre "el shamanismo" şi rosteau acest cuvânt cu aceaşi spontaneitate cu care pregăteau ayahuasca. Lucru care crează o bizară scurtcircuitare culturală la nivelul înţelegerii. Impresia de la început că ei fac parte din altă lume începe să concureze cu ceva familiar şi anticipat: aceşti oameni trăiesc la nivelul lingvistic la care trăiesc şi eu, totuşi, realitatea (ceea ce noi numim "cotidian") o trăiesc la un nivel care pentru mine este de neconceput (sau cel puţin asta este prima impresie)... Hmmm..., mi-am zis, oare eu nu pot trăi realitatea la nivelul lor? Oare eu nu trăiesc realiatatea deja la nivelul la care trăiesc şi ei, dar sunt într-un fel orbit. Oare perspectiva lor care pare atât de simplistă pentru o perspectivă civilizată nu est cumva mai potrivită tocmai pentru că este atât de simplă, naivă şi de necrezut... Hmmm...Mckenna, Bataille, Deleuze: quasi-şa-man, "ca şi un şaman"... Husserl, Richir: "lumea lui ca-şi-cum".
"Quasi-şaman" este rezultatul unui brainstorming şi nimic mai mult. Este un joc de cuvinte cu care vreau să desemnez o stare de spirit, o atitudine. De aceea, nu pot vorbi despre cvazişamanism ca despre un alt -ism. Acest cuvânt are o conotaţie intimă şi personală, nimic universal. El face parte din răspunsul meu la strigătul lui Flavio. Prin el nu susţin nici o teorie, nu iniţiez nici o sectă, ci pur şi simplu îmi manifest solidaritatea faţă de Flavio, familia sa, cultura sa, natură şi tot universul.
Dacă există un cvazişamanism atunci el asta este: o solidaritate intimă cu acei oameni şi cultura lor care cred categoric în comuniunea cu natura, şi nimic mai mult. De aici plecând, rămâne de văzut cât de intimă este acestă solidaritate.
About
This is the log of a
work in progress. I'm tryning to keep here acount of all my quasi-shamanic inspiration -
the medium - so, please, do keep in mind that
these posts are in fact the actual WORK that some day will be presented as a finished work -
the message - (I hope it will be a book, but I certanly see this only as a last "bagage" that I have to throw away to free myself).
You can email me at -mariustoica_at_gmail_ dot_ com- for any question or opinion that you might have regarding my work.
Some info about myself: My name is Marius Stoica, I live in Timisoara (Romania), I'm 27 years old. Next week I'll get merried and my wife is pregnant in 4 months :) I've studied philosophy with an emphasis on contemporary french philosphy and some on phenomenology. In fact, I'm pretty influenced by authors like Battaille, Deleuze, Husserl or Marc Richir. I also don't like corporatism and imperialism and I try to resist to all the crap that the world is more and more filled in.
8 September 2007----------------
Trecem la modul freestyle
7 Octombrie 2008
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