CHECK IT OUT GUYS, WE'RE SHAMANS!

[Cainad (dec.)]

Sorry Cain; accessing from a phone in between classes. The idea that Trickster mythology is essentially a parody of shamanistic mythology is pretty fascinating. One of those things that seems obvious once pointed out.

That would make Discordianism anti-shamanic in that sense, insofar as it is also a counter argument to religiously prescribed worldviews in general.

[Phox]

I think I'll keep this thread in mind, the next time I'm stupidly gripped by the desire to transcribe something of possible interest.

I thought the piece you posted was very interesting, Cain. I apologize that I did not comment on it earlier.

Ricketts' argument appears sound, though I do not know enough about the Native American traditions to comment on it more fully.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

so, what was exactly the case for followers of trickster deities being anti-shamanistic?

From Trickster Makes This World:

In 1964, Mac Linscott Ricketts finished a doctoral thesis that is a remarkably wide-ranging survey of North American trickster tales.  There and in later essays Ricketts has argued that the tales locate the trickster in opposition to the practice and beliefs of shamanism.   To Ricketts way of thinking, humankind has two responses when faced with all that engenders awe and dread in this world: the way of the shaman (and the priests), which assumes a spiritual world, bows before it, and seeks to make alliances; and the way of the trickster (and the humanists), which recognizes no power beyond its own intelligence, and seeks to seize and subdue the unknown with wit and cunning.  "The trickster...embodies [an] experience of Reality...in which humans feel themselves to be self-sufficient beings for whom the supernatural spirits are powers not to be worshipped, but ignored, to be overcome, or in the last analysis, mocked."  The shaman enters the spirit world and works with it, but "the trickster is an outside...He has no friends in that other world...All that humans have gained from the unseen powers beyond-fire, fish, game, fresh water and so forth-have been obtained, by necessity, through trickery or theft..."  In obtaining these goods, the trickster, unlike the shaman, "did not also obtain superhuman powers, or spiritual friendship...He seems to need no friends: he gets on very well by himself..."

To explore this idea, Ricketts shows how a number of trickster stories can be read as parodies of shamanism.  In shamanic initiations, for example, spirits kill and resurrect the initiate, often placing something inside the resurrected body - a quartz crystal, for example - which the shaman can later call forth from his body during healing rituals.  If someone in your group claims such powers, you may find wry humour in the stories which have Coyote, when he needs advice, calling forth (which much grunting) his own excrement.  Likewise, dreams of flying are said to be premonitions of shamanic initiation, and the shaman in a trance can supposedly fly into the sky, into the underworld, into the deepest forest.  With this in mind, it's hard not the hear the parodic tone in the almost universal stories of trickster trying to fly with the birds, only to fall ignominiously to earth.  Trickster's failure implies that shamanic pretensions are daydreams at best, fakery at worst.  "Humans were not made to fly...Trickster, like the human being, is an earth-bound creature, and his wish to fly (and to escape the human condition) is...a frivolous fancy."

Similarly, the "bungling host" stories may be not only about the instinctual ways of animals, as I argued in an earlier chapter, but about the shaman's claim to be able to acquire the power of other beings.  Trickster fails to acquire powers because it flatly can't be done.  "The trickster, in trying to get his food in the manner of the Kingfisher, for instance...is reaching for superhuman abilities.  He is, in fact, attempting to transcend the human condition and live in a mode which is different from that which is proper for humans.  Blundering efforts to do what animals do," Ricketts concludes, "may be viewed as mockery of shamans and all others who think they can get higher powers from animal spirits."

If the shaman in touch with higher spirits is the prophet of Native America, then trickster, his laughing shadow, is a prophet with a difference.  Over and over the stories call attention to the actual constraints of human life: humans can't fly like birds; the dead do not return.  These are a species of "eternal truth", but pointing them out draws attention to this world, not another.  It is a revelation of fleshy bodies, not heavenly bodies.  Beyond this, where parody is able to strip the things it mocks of their charm, it opens up spaces in which something new might happen.  It is true when trickster breaks the rules we see the rules more clearly, but we also get a glimpse of everything the rules exclude.  Commenting on Navajo stories, Barre Toelken writes: "Coyote functions in the oral literature as a symbol of that chaotic Everything with which man's rituals have created an order for survival."  Mocking the rituals opens the door for the return of that chaotic Everything.  From the shaman's point of view, the rules that trickster breaks articulate the ideal world, but from trickster's vantage point, if we think the ideal os real we are seriously mistaken and won't see half of what is right in front of us.  We may wish our bodies produced quartz crystals, but the bowels regularly tell another story.

Another perspective, which is very typical of Native American groups, is that the shaman cannot function without the Trickster. I can't agree with Ricketts assessment of the trickster as anti-shamanic because, like the archetypal shaman, Trickster walks freely between the living and spirit worlds, and in his bungling great creations are made. Toelken seems to have a clearer perspective, but really, there are so many failings anytime a non-indian has tried to analyze indian perspectives. Rickett seems to be profoundly missing the boat there.

Also, not to be too pedantic, but Native American trickster characters aren't deities.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Damn. What if we call ourselves Native Americans?

I am NOT wearing a pony tail, a tie-dye t shirt, shorts, and birkenstocks.  That is the REQUIRED uniform of the male Cherohonkey

What if we say we're Algoncrackers instead?

We're not pretending to be something else, or to ride on the coattails of other people's traditions. That's what makes us uniquely authentic compared to other neo-religions. Furthermore, we are a shamanic religion that has spread globally and has unique markers which identify us as a loosely cohesive cultural group.

huh. I haven't thought of Discordia along those lines before.

That's what anthropology is for. It's also boring as fuck, so I'm trying to spice it up a bit.

However, I am not bullshitting that from an anthropological point of view and by an anthropological definition of the word "shaman", at least according to yesterday's lecture, Discordian Holy Men fulfill the role of shamans. If I was writing an ethnographical study of Discordians, that's the category I'd be sticking us in.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I think I'll keep this thread in mind, the next time I'm stupidly gripped by the desire to transcribe something of possible interest.

I thought the piece you posted was very interesting, Cain. I apologize that I did not comment on it earlier.

Ricketts' argument appears sound, though I do not know enough about the Native American traditions to comment on it more fully.

Rickett's argument appears to have been pulled directly out of his ass, without any particular knowledge of the cultures of origin for the stories he was attempting to make a religious analysis of by simply laying them on top of the dominant culture's worldview. Ricketts is a theologian, not an ethnographer.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

so, what was exactly the case for followers of trickster deities being anti-shamanistic?

From Trickster Makes This World:

In 1964, Mac Linscott Ricketts finished a doctoral thesis that is a remarkably wide-ranging survey of North American trickster tales.  There and in later essays Ricketts has argued that the tales locate the trickster in opposition to the practice and beliefs of shamanism.   To Ricketts way of thinking, humankind has two responses when faced with all that engenders awe and dread in this world: the way of the shaman (and the priests), which assumes a spiritual world, bows before it, and seeks to make alliances; and the way of the trickster (and the humanists), which recognizes no power beyond its own intelligence, and seeks to seize and subdue the unknown with wit and cunning.  "The trickster...embodies [an] experience of Reality...in which humans feel themselves to be self-sufficient beings for whom the supernatural spirits are powers not to be worshipped, but ignored, to be overcome, or in the last analysis, mocked."  The shaman enters the spirit world and works with it, but "the trickster is an outside...He has no friends in that other world...All that humans have gained from the unseen powers beyond-fire, fish, game, fresh water and so forth-have been obtained, by necessity, through trickery or theft..."  In obtaining these goods, the trickster, unlike the shaman, "did not also obtain superhuman powers, or spiritual friendship...He seems to need no friends: he gets on very well by himself..."

To explore this idea, Ricketts shows how a number of trickster stories can be read as parodies of shamanism.  In shamanic initiations, for example, spirits kill and resurrect the initiate, often placing something inside the resurrected body - a quartz crystal, for example - which the shaman can later call forth from his body during healing rituals.  If someone in your group claims such powers, you may find wry humour in the stories which have Coyote, when he needs advice, calling forth (which much grunting) his own excrement.  Likewise, dreams of flying are said to be premonitions of shamanic initiation, and the shaman in a trance can supposedly fly into the sky, into the underworld, into the deepest forest.  With this in mind, it's hard not the hear the parodic tone in the almost universal stories of trickster trying to fly with the birds, only to fall ignominiously to earth.  Trickster's failure implies that shamanic pretensions are daydreams at best, fakery at worst.  "Humans were not made to fly...Trickster, like the human being, is an earth-bound creature, and his wish to fly (and to escape the human condition) is...a frivolous fancy."

Similarly, the "bungling host" stories may be not only about the instinctual ways of animals, as I argued in an earlier chapter, but about the shaman's claim to be able to acquire the power of other beings.  Trickster fails to acquire powers because it flatly can't be done.  "The trickster, in trying to get his food in the manner of the Kingfisher, for instance...is reaching for superhuman abilities.  He is, in fact, attempting to transcend the human condition and live in a mode which is different from that which is proper for humans.  Blundering efforts to do what animals do," Ricketts concludes, "may be viewed as mockery of shamans and all others who think they can get higher powers from animal spirits."

If the shaman in touch with higher spirits is the prophet of Native America, then trickster, his laughing shadow, is a prophet with a difference.  Over and over the stories call attention to the actual constraints of human life: humans can't fly like birds; the dead do not return.  These are a species of "eternal truth", but pointing them out draws attention to this world, not another.  It is a revelation of fleshy bodies, not heavenly bodies.  Beyond this, where parody is able to strip the things it mocks of their charm, it opens up spaces in which something new might happen.  It is true when trickster breaks the rules we see the rules more clearly, but we also get a glimpse of everything the rules exclude.  Commenting on Navajo stories, Barre Toelken writes: "Coyote functions in the oral literature as a symbol of that chaotic Everything with which man's rituals have created an order for survival."  Mocking the rituals opens the door for the return of that chaotic Everything.  From the shaman's point of view, the rules that trickster breaks articulate the ideal world, but from trickster's vantage point, if we think the ideal os real we are seriously mistaken and won't see half of what is right in front of us.  We may wish our bodies produced quartz crystals, but the bowels regularly tell another story.

Another perspective, which is very typical of Native American groups, is that the shaman cannot function without the Trickster. I can't agree with Ricketts assessment of the trickster as anti-shamanic because, like the archetypal shaman, Trickster walks freely between the living and spirit worlds, and in his bungling great creations are made. Toelken seems to have a clearer perspective, but really, there are so many failings anytime a non-indian has tried to analyze indian perspectives. Rickett seems to be profoundly missing the boat there.

Also, not to be too pedantic, but Native American trickster characters aren't deities.

I could be mistaken, but I think they have different kinds of tricksters...a Lakota shaman probably wouldn't fool with Inktomi (he's kind of an example of what not to do) but I've heard of them being Heyokas.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

so, what was exactly the case for followers of trickster deities being anti-shamanistic?

From Trickster Makes This World:

In 1964, Mac Linscott Ricketts finished a doctoral thesis that is a remarkably wide-ranging survey of North American trickster tales.  There and in later essays Ricketts has argued that the tales locate the trickster in opposition to the practice and beliefs of shamanism.   To Ricketts way of thinking, humankind has two responses when faced with all that engenders awe and dread in this world: the way of the shaman (and the priests), which assumes a spiritual world, bows before it, and seeks to make alliances; and the way of the trickster (and the humanists), which recognizes no power beyond its own intelligence, and seeks to seize and subdue the unknown with wit and cunning.  "The trickster...embodies [an] experience of Reality...in which humans feel themselves to be self-sufficient beings for whom the supernatural spirits are powers not to be worshipped, but ignored, to be overcome, or in the last analysis, mocked."  The shaman enters the spirit world and works with it, but "the trickster is an outside...He has no friends in that other world...All that humans have gained from the unseen powers beyond-fire, fish, game, fresh water and so forth-have been obtained, by necessity, through trickery or theft..."  In obtaining these goods, the trickster, unlike the shaman, "did not also obtain superhuman powers, or spiritual friendship...He seems to need no friends: he gets on very well by himself..."

To explore this idea, Ricketts shows how a number of trickster stories can be read as parodies of shamanism.  In shamanic initiations, for example, spirits kill and resurrect the initiate, often placing something inside the resurrected body - a quartz crystal, for example - which the shaman can later call forth from his body during healing rituals.  If someone in your group claims such powers, you may find wry humour in the stories which have Coyote, when he needs advice, calling forth (which much grunting) his own excrement.  Likewise, dreams of flying are said to be premonitions of shamanic initiation, and the shaman in a trance can supposedly fly into the sky, into the underworld, into the deepest forest.  With this in mind, it's hard not the hear the parodic tone in the almost universal stories of trickster trying to fly with the birds, only to fall ignominiously to earth.  Trickster's failure implies that shamanic pretensions are daydreams at best, fakery at worst.  "Humans were not made to fly...Trickster, like the human being, is an earth-bound creature, and his wish to fly (and to escape the human condition) is...a frivolous fancy."

Similarly, the "bungling host" stories may be not only about the instinctual ways of animals, as I argued in an earlier chapter, but about the shaman's claim to be able to acquire the power of other beings.  Trickster fails to acquire powers because it flatly can't be done.  "The trickster, in trying to get his food in the manner of the Kingfisher, for instance...is reaching for superhuman abilities.  He is, in fact, attempting to transcend the human condition and live in a mode which is different from that which is proper for humans.  Blundering efforts to do what animals do," Ricketts concludes, "may be viewed as mockery of shamans and all others who think they can get higher powers from animal spirits."

If the shaman in touch with higher spirits is the prophet of Native America, then trickster, his laughing shadow, is a prophet with a difference.  Over and over the stories call attention to the actual constraints of human life: humans can't fly like birds; the dead do not return.  These are a species of "eternal truth", but pointing them out draws attention to this world, not another.  It is a revelation of fleshy bodies, not heavenly bodies.  Beyond this, where parody is able to strip the things it mocks of their charm, it opens up spaces in which something new might happen.  It is true when trickster breaks the rules we see the rules more clearly, but we also get a glimpse of everything the rules exclude.  Commenting on Navajo stories, Barre Toelken writes: "Coyote functions in the oral literature as a symbol of that chaotic Everything with which man's rituals have created an order for survival."  Mocking the rituals opens the door for the return of that chaotic Everything.  From the shaman's point of view, the rules that trickster breaks articulate the ideal world, but from trickster's vantage point, if we think the ideal os real we are seriously mistaken and won't see half of what is right in front of us.  We may wish our bodies produced quartz crystals, but the bowels regularly tell another story.

Another perspective, which is very typical of Native American groups, is that the shaman cannot function without the Trickster. I can't agree with Ricketts assessment of the trickster as anti-shamanic because, like the archetypal shaman, Trickster walks freely between the living and spirit worlds, and in his bungling great creations are made. Toelken seems to have a clearer perspective, but really, there are so many failings anytime a non-indian has tried to analyze indian perspectives. Rickett seems to be profoundly missing the boat there.

Also, not to be too pedantic, but Native American trickster characters aren't deities.

I could be mistaken, but I think they have different kinds of tricksters...a Lakota shaman probably wouldn't fool with Inktomi (he's kind of an example of what not to do) but I've heard of them being Heyokas.

There are many different trickster characters, and their roles vary widely, although they have certain commonalities (if you are familiar with stories from different nations, you will find that there is an ass-ton of overlap, with Iktomi, Coyote, and We-Gyet all performing the same roles in some of the same stories). However, Ricketts' attempt to force them into a mold of Western religious logic is asinine.

And yeah, the Heyoka (which I can only assume Ricketts was unaware of) is a good example of the interplay between trickster and shaman. They are certainly not diametrically opposite.

[Phox]

I think I'll keep this thread in mind, the next time I'm stupidly gripped by the desire to transcribe something of possible interest.

I thought the piece you posted was very interesting, Cain. I apologize that I did not comment on it earlier.

Ricketts' argument appears sound, though I do not know enough about the Native American traditions to comment on it more fully.

Rickett's argument appears to have been pulled directly out of his ass, without any particular knowledge of the cultures of origin for the stories he was attempting to make a religious analysis of by simply laying them on top of the dominant culture's worldview. Ricketts is a theologian, not an ethnographer.

To clarify what I meant:It appears sound, based on the premises forwarded, and, given that I have no cultural knowledge of these traditions, I cannot judge the accuracy of the claims being made.

Your counter point is well noted, Nigel, thank you for forwarding it.

Phox,
Cultural knowledge consists of Mediterranean cultures ~2000+ years ago. 

[Triple Zero]

I think I'll keep this thread in mind, the next time I'm stupidly gripped by the desire to transcribe something of possible interest.

Just got back home and the first thing I was going to post was thanking you for answering my question.

However due to having a few other things on my mind, I can't read, internalize and give intelligent response to it right now. But I'm keeping the tab open and will do so later.

(Same thanks to Nigel btw, for expanding on the questions to the OP)

Damn. What if we call ourselves Native Americans? I was born in America. Canada's America too.

I sat on a porch and whittled wood. I'm pretty sure that counts as well.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I think I'll keep this thread in mind, the next time I'm stupidly gripped by the desire to transcribe something of possible interest.

I thought the piece you posted was very interesting, Cain. I apologize that I did not comment on it earlier.

Ricketts' argument appears sound, though I do not know enough about the Native American traditions to comment on it more fully.

Rickett's argument appears to have been pulled directly out of his ass, without any particular knowledge of the cultures of origin for the stories he was attempting to make a religious analysis of by simply laying them on top of the dominant culture's worldview. Ricketts is a theologian, not an ethnographer.

To clarify what I meant:It appears sound, based on the premises forwarded, and, given that I have no cultural knowledge of these traditions, I cannot judge the accuracy of the claims being made.

Your counter point is well noted, Nigel, thank you for forwarding it.

Phox,
Cultural knowledge consists of Mediterranean cultures ~2000+ years ago. 

Not criticizing you, Phox, just criticizing Ricketts.

[Doktor Howl]

Damn. What if we call ourselves Native Americans?

I am NOT wearing a pony tail, a tie-dye t shirt, shorts, and birkenstocks.  That is the REQUIRED uniform of the male Cherohonkey

What if we say we're Algoncrackers instead?

We're not pretending to be something else, or to ride on the coattails of other people's traditions. That's what makes us uniquely authentic compared to other neo-religions. Furthermore, we are a shamanic religion that has spread globally and has unique markers which identify us as a loosely cohesive cultural group.

huh. I haven't thought of Discordia along those lines before.

The reason why I'm a Discordian is that it's ME, not a tag or a label or a uniform.  While I heartily endorse wearing someone else's uniform for the purpose of ambush, I can't see wearing one to co-opt another religion's benefits or drawbacks.

Because then I'd be someone else.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Damn. What if we call ourselves Native Americans?

I am NOT wearing a pony tail, a tie-dye t shirt, shorts, and birkenstocks.  That is the REQUIRED uniform of the male Cherohonkey

What if we say we're Algoncrackers instead?

We're not pretending to be something else, or to ride on the coattails of other people's traditions. That's what makes us uniquely authentic compared to other neo-religions. Furthermore, we are a shamanic religion that has spread globally and has unique markers which identify us as a loosely cohesive cultural group.

huh. I haven't thought of Discordia along those lines before.

The reason why I'm a Discordian is that it's ME, not a tag or a label or a uniform.  While I heartily endorse wearing someone else's uniform for the purpose of ambush, I can't see wearing one to co-opt another religion's benefits or drawbacks.

Because then I'd be someone else.

I meant more along the lines of that I had thought of it as a Hellenic parody of New Age and Neopaganism with more meat than meets the eye. Now though, Nigel's post made me realize that the Hellenic bit is just a convenient metaphor for a Westerner and really has no other relation to Hellenism other than the use of the name Eris. It's a distinct 20th century jokeosophy. The only relation that could be drawn from Greece is if Diogenes vacationed in China and then went bowling. I have another thought bouncing around in my head but it's not quite formed yet.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

I am still trying to wrap my head around the idea of being a shaman. Probably because of some resistance to reframe the definition of shaman, which calls up an image of some dude dressed in animal skins tripping balls and playing with bones for the good of the tribe.

[Doktor Howl]

I meant more along the lines of that I had thought of it as a Hellenic parody of New Age and Neopaganism with more meat than meets the eye. Now though, Nigel's post made me realize that the Hellenic bit is just a convenient metaphor for a Westerner and really has no other relation to Hellenism other than the use of the name Eris. It's a distinct 20th century jokeosophy. The only relation that could be drawn from Greece is if Diogenes vacationed in China and then went bowling. I have another thought bouncing around in my head but it's not quite formed yet.

I don't think of Discordianism as a joke, or a philosophy about jokes.

I think of it as the thinking person's religion.

[Doktor Howl]

I am still trying to wrap my head around the idea of being a shaman. Probably because of some resistance to reframe the definition of shaman, which calls up an image of some dude dressed in animal skins tripping balls and playing with bones for the good of the tribe.

I don't consider myself a shaman, though I do gorge myself on Cactus and spout Holiness™ from time to time.  For the good of the neighbors.

But I'm willing to wear the uniform to give someone a case of the ass.