jamie wrote:Can I ask what is your age and how recent is all of this in your life? I ask out of curiosity because when I discovered all these psychedelics, Mckenna, ideas of some kind of global wide thing called "shamanism" I got really into it and came to many of the same conclusions and held similar beliefs. I went to school, studied some anthropology and fell into a serious period of ayahuasca drinking that lasted years.
Now older coming into my mid 30's, my views have shifted a lot. I don't believe in one primordial "shamanic" religion. I think calling oneself a shaman in the western world is like a pilates instructor saying they are a yogi. I don't think that psychedelics and shamanism belong to each other...any more than yoga and psychedelics belong together, or computer programming and LSD belong together.
I feel there is a bit of a sit at home fantasy dungeons and dragons-esque aspect to the new age "shamanic" trend that has arisen around psychedelics and ayahuasca especially..and I feel that it has become part of that trend to later deny any ties to that same new age thread of thought that has seeded itself through every aspect of the counter culture.
I would never call the Telestai of the mysteries shaman simply because psychedelics seem to have played a central role. Much use of tryptamines in the amazon seems to be more about warfare, rites of innitiation, recreational partying(men usually) and to be frank, just men grabbing themselves by the balls and being men..and nothing wrong with that. It's typically a men's thing and has little to do with western ideas of spirituality. Most of that is old world mysticism and psychedelic use in the west largely represents that model more effectively. I don't really know anyone who is using tryptamines this way(traditional), nor do I really feel there are any shamans in the west.
Just some thoughts I have in retrospect as I look back on my 20's and many of the ideas I held as true for me at the time.
I'm in my late 20's. Though this is irrelevant.
I grew up around shamanism.
When I was a child, my mom's friend and a local home day care owner would watch after myself and my sister. This friend of my mom's was native American, and shared in native American traditions with our family. Once a year we would go to events called "Rendezvous" with this family, these events are characterized by living in traditional native American housing (teepees), wearing traditional native clothing, and practicing traditional activities like bows and arrow, hatchet throwing, hunting, etc...as well.as learning about the culture and history. there was a "mountain man" aspect to all this as well, so there's black powder rifles and things of this nature, however my family always participated in the native American aspects of these events. At night, around the fire, the shamans would come out, smudge the children with sage, and tell stories. So as a child, I had never been in a church, but the ideas of plant medicine and shamanic practices were what I considered to be the norm.
My first shamanic ceremony involving entheogens was when I was in middle school, I was at Canyon de Chelly, Arizona, on the Navajo reservation, we were there to plant peach trees, and I was asked to participate in a peyote ceremony...
when I was in middle school I also began attending meditation courses at a Buddhist university (which was co-founded by Allen ginsburg). These were not academic courses, they were meditation courses, but I would often wonder the campus speaking to whoever I could. One day my meditation instructor came upon me reading, the book was "flowering plants: magic in bloom" which is an educational book that you would probably find in a school library, but still had some decent information, so my instructor inquired about my interest in these plants. After explaining myself my instructed revealed that she had gone to Peru multiple times to drink ayahuasca, and was well connected to entheogen use. The next meeting, she showed up with a book called "the archaic revival" by terence McKenna. I was transfixed on this new material. Eventually I managed to see McKenna live in Denver in 1999...I've been a fan of McKenna ever since.
as far as shamanism goes, I don't know what to tell you, this is my spirituality, if one were to ask me "what is your religion?" shamanism would be the appropriate answer. I'm not a healer, and I do not provide shamanic services, it's a personal spiritual practice. I use shamanic techniques to express my spurituality, therefore I practice shamanism.
Age is irrelevant in this situation. I meet some who say "I was a Buddhist in college, but I grew out of it" now, this does not mean that Buddhism is for young people or that practicing it is immature...its same situation here with shamanism.
...but to each his own, I suppose that if you can not derive anything deeper from these things than you could in your 20s, then there would be no reason to continue exploring them.
-eg