Very thought-provoking article. Thanks for writing it!
In regard to the Thomas McEvilley quote: Psychosis is defined as a severe mental condition in which thought and emotions are so affected that contact is lost with external reality. The phrase “severe mental condition” characterizes the word “psychosis” so that it is seen less as a gift and more as an unreliable aberration. I am referring to this definition of the word aberration: a departure from what is normal, usual, or expected, typically an unwelcome one.
You wrote that shaman’s experience of contacting or interacting with the world of spirit is more probably the turbocharging of the unconscious mind. What, then, is the unconscious mind if not the universal mind inseparable from the collective unconscious of which Jung spoke? I think this is a major flaw in trying to examine what is happening from the outside looking in. As human beings we are conditioned to believe we are separate from all else — from other people, nature, the material world, phenomena, the full range of emotions and feelings, and the unseen world. If we remove the conditioned mind, the sense of self, from the equation then we are left with the wholeness, which is the contents of consciousness; the unconscious mind. And my consciousness is no different from yours or anyone else’s. With this in mind we may ask whether the shaman is going into his own mind or whether he is leaving his personal mind of the self behind and experiencing a reality unfamiliar to the stuck, conditioned mind.
I would also offer another idea here, pursuant to McEvilley’s assessment of religion taking over shamanism. I don’t think it has ever done this. Not at all. I would say instead that religion has overshadowed shamanism. Certainly there are not fewer shamans today than there were a hundred, a thousand, or ten thousand years ago. Such people can still be found around the world and even nestled within modern societies. Of course we have a good share of fakes and charlatans. Some of these people are very popular and ride the lecture circuit, fool a lot of people, and make a lot of money. Many refer to themselves as psychic mediums, sadhgurus, enlightened teachers, and so on, and it is highly questionable as to whether most of such people are nothing more than frauds. But shamans do still exist. It is more that the attention has shifted away from shamanism to religion and less that religion has made shamans a dying breed. The question of whether shamans actually have the power to visit some other world of reality is food for another conversation.
But, alas, religion is indeed a failure and it often seems to be losing its grip. The god of organized religion is “out there” even as people wish so much that he were “in here” where the heart and mind suffers. The voice of God giving people personal answers and instructions seems better befitting of the definition of “psychosis.” And it is the sense of self, the egoic mind, that leads so many to claim that God talked to them or told them what to do. The main problem is that people have no way — or interest — to shed this egoic self and therefore they are consumed by it. God is literally the deus ex machina for all our existential, societal, and personal woes.
To say that this world has seen a transition from shamans to priests does not ring true to me. I would rather say that shamanism has been overshadowed by religion. It certainly was not replaced if for no other reason than all people do not find religion to be useful, comforting, or “spiritual” (a loaded word, I know). We suffer from the same existential crises today as ever before. Why? Because the human mind, belabored by the egoic conditioning, suffers to find a way out of its suffering.
I would find it interesting if you delved into the idea of how the monetization of spirituality has given rise to today’s false prophets and spiritual “masters” whose teachings have never left the plane of the egoic self. You touched on this briefly in your well-stated idea that “ societies made a business or a science out of anything that was worth preserving in shamanism.”
This is a great and challenging question you wrote: “Is there still an existential problem, and if so, is this problem better left in the hands of neoshamans (withdrawn gurus, philosophers, artists, and the like) or of established professionals, from priests and celebrities to scientists and politicians?” My answer is yes, there is still an existential problem and there will always be one. And, yes, the problem of existentialism cannot ever be adequately addressed by science for so many obvious reasons that you have covered in previous articles.
Lastly, this idea may be problematic: “Prehistoric tribes had no other recourse but to trust the ravings of drug-addled, mentally unbalanced individuals because those groups lacked the advantages of a technologically developed society.” Why are shamans depicted in this way? Why are shamans characterized as crazed and mentally imbalanced? It could easily be argued that this actually describes everyone else but the shaman. After all, when we truly enquire into our own sense of self, if brave, motivated, and diligent enough to do so, we come to understand that we experience what the Hindus called maya, a false sense of reality. Our world and thoughts are colored by a conditioned mind and not an unalloyed perspective of reality.
