CHECK IT OUT GUYS, WE'RE SHAMANS!

[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. 

Not criticizing you, Phox, just criticizing Ricketts.

Yeah, I didn't take it as a criticism; just looking over what I said and what was going through my head at the time, I had a nagging need to more clearly articulate my initial response to it, and your reply to my reply made me look at it again, and it started to bug me.

[Don Coyote]

Incidentally though, and somewhat seriously, I've seen the case be made that followers of all trickster-deities, which would include Eris, are actually anti-shamanic.  I had this argument with WyldKat a long time ago, because she also went "Discordianism is Shamanism" (which I'm fairly sure was leading up to "and I am a Shaman", and then "therefore I am a Discordian", and finally "and I am not oppressing myself, so TCC does not hate Discordians").

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.

Regardless of whether Rickett was talking out his ass on this subject, I found it profoundly interesting, if only as a way to dissect a white man's perspective looking from the outside with ignorance. I'm adding this to my list of things to research during the summer.
Additionally, when I saw this I was on my way out the door to class and didn't have the time to comment on Cain's contribution.

[Triple Zero]

I agree, I just read it and found it REALLY interesting, thanks for writing it up, Cain!

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.

One thing I don't understand, though, is there are trickster stories all over the world. There's Anansi from African folk tales, Loki from the Norse pantheon, Eris from the Greeks, and even in European folk tales Reinaert de Vos (a ruthless trickster fox).

Ricketts doesn't mention these either (nor do all of them fit particularly well as anti-shamans), but it's also not that Native Americans have the final authority on all things trickster.

[Telarus]

It was a good counterpoint to the discussion, thanks Cain.

I like what I'm seeing here .

I think the main failing in Rickett's presentation is he sets the trickster up as a dualistic opposite of the Shaman, whereas I see the Trickster figure as more of a character who will use shamanic and anti-shamaic techniques to escape from the false-duality. I think Rickett was just writing from the default dualistic western perspective (which doesn't line up 100% with how tricksters behaved in the first nation's stories or elsewhere... yeah, coyote tried to fly and failed, but Raven is just as much of a trickster in the NW as Coyote was... etc).

The fact that this "Escaping the dualisms by synthesizing them" is a deep undercurrent in Discordian thought also points towards the early animist beliefs, where spirit was not seperate from flesh, and killing the bear to feed your tribe meant killing the Bear-God to feed your tribe.

I see that in Cram's writing on memes (they are not separate from "the network", i.e., us... but it is useful to interface with them as if they were seperate sometimes), Dok's advice about the HERE AND NOW, and Cain's synthesis of geo-politics and memetics.

In short, anti-shamans tend to make the best shamans, we can deal with the visible and the non-visible and not fall into the trap of thinking they are "separate".

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

CAIN

          is most likely closer with the trickster analogy, in describing a fair bulk of spags. i would imagine that pd is a fairly mixed bag though too. tricksters get over identified and generally, the good which tricksters account for is often overlooked.shaman characters have a "cruel gardener" side as well and the trickster is not necessarily nefarious at all.  shaman the shaman and trickster are after all, addressing common concerns. 

IT'S

          like spags and libertarians.

This is an interesting post which I'd overlooked, but yes, the "creative chaos" element of the trickster is very important and often overlooked. For example, in many Trickster stories, Trickster brings us technological innovation, often as the result of a destructive mistake.

[E.O.T.]

CAIN

          is most likely closer with the trickster analogy, in describing a fair bulk of spags. i would imagine that pd is a fairly mixed bag though too. tricksters get over identified and generally, the good which tricksters account for is often overlooked.shaman characters have a "cruel gardener" side as well and the trickster is not necessarily nefarious at all.  shaman the shaman and trickster are after all, addressing common concerns. 

IT'S

          like spags and libertarians.

This is an interesting post which I'd overlooked, but yes, the "creative chaos" element of the trickster is very important and often overlooked. For example, in many Trickster stories, Trickster brings us technological innovation, often as the result of a destructive mistake.

WHAT

          ever

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

CAIN

          is most likely closer with the trickster analogy, in describing a fair bulk of spags. i would imagine that pd is a fairly mixed bag though too. tricksters get over identified and generally, the good which tricksters account for is often overlooked.shaman characters have a "cruel gardener" side as well and the trickster is not necessarily nefarious at all.  shaman the shaman and trickster are after all, addressing common concerns. 

IT'S

          like spags and libertarians.

This is an interesting post which I'd overlooked, but yes, the "creative chaos" element of the trickster is very important and often overlooked. For example, in many Trickster stories, Trickster brings us technological innovation, often as the result of a destructive mistake.

WHAT

          ever

SHUT UP, YOU.

[ñͤͣ̄ͦ̌̑͗͊͛͂͗ ̸̨̨̣̺̼̣̜͙͈͕̮̊̈́̈͂͛̽͊ͭ̓͆ͅé ̰̓̓́ͯ́́͞]

It was a good counterpoint to the discussion, thanks Cain.

I like what I'm seeing here .

I think the main failing in Rickett's presentation is he sets the trickster up as a dualistic opposite of the Shaman, whereas I see the Trickster figure as more of a character who will use shamanic and anti-shamaic techniques to escape from the false-duality. I think Rickett was just writing from the default dualistic western perspective (which doesn't line up 100% with how tricksters behaved in the first nation's stories or elsewhere... yeah, coyote tried to fly and failed, but Raven is just as much of a trickster in the NW as Coyote was... etc).

The fact that this "Escaping the dualisms by synthesizing them" is a deep undercurrent in Discordian thought also points towards the early animist beliefs, where spirit was not seperate from flesh, and killing the bear to feed your tribe meant killing the Bear-God to feed your tribe.

I see that in Cram's writing on memes (they are not separate from "the network", i.e., us... but it is useful to interface with them as if they were seperate sometimes), Dok's advice about the HERE AND NOW, and Cain's synthesis of geo-politics and memetics.

In short, anti-shamans tend to make the best shamans, we can deal with the visible and the non-visible and not fall into the trap of thinking they are "separate".

Great post, Telarus. I'm not very knowledgeable about trickster characters in any tradition so I haven't had much to say on the topic, but this makes a lot of sense and is an interesting take on it.

At the very least, it jives with my understanding of Discordian themes, though I would say PD.com does seem to tend towards the anti-shamanic side of things.