Thoughts on shamanism by Claus von Bohlen

MY THOUGHTS ON SHAMANISM, PAYING SPECIFIC ATTENTION TO THE MESTIZO SHAMANISM OF THE UPPER AMAZON

This essay is an evaluation of shamanism from a personal perspective. I integrate the material I have read and draw some tentative conclusions of my own. I pay specific attention to shamanism as it is practiced by mixed race (‘mestizo’) shamans of the Upper Amazon. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, I have some firsthand experience of Amazonian shamanism, having been an ‘ayahuasca tourist’ myself. And, secondly, I have been influenced by Stephan Beyer’s thought-provoking book, Singing to the plants: A guide to mestizo shamanism in the Upper Amazon (2009). In many ways, I see myself as the product of western rationalism and the values of the enlightenment. I grew up in Europe in an agnostic family. Partly through upbringing and partly through temperament, I decided from a young age to apportion credence in relation to the evidence available. I was a good empiricist and I soon decided that the evidence for Christianity – the religion that was shoved down my throat at school – was insufficient to substantiate the claims it made. I was not enticed by the idea of accepting things on faith alone – that seemed to go against everything else I was being taught. As an undergraduate student of philosophy, I felt that I had found a kindred spirit in David Hume (1711- 1776). His thoroughgoing empiricism made sense to me, and he was also a philosopher who wrote with style and verve and humor and even, reading between the lines, with kindness and compassion. From Hume I graduated to Kant and here, perhaps surprisingly, the cracks began to appear. Kant’s writing about the sublime, and his notion of an unknowable noumenal world, opened my eyes to the sense that there may be more to reality than our day to day experience. However, the problem is that, by virtue of the creatures that we are, we can never know what the world is really like. We can only know the phenomena, not the underlying noumena. At most, we can hope to have intimations of it, as in the experience of the sublime.

This, more or less, is the approach that has guided me throughout my adult life. On the surface, the world of shamanism appears to be far removed from my own outlook. Even my personal experiences with ayahuasca have not provided me with clear evidence of a spirit world, hence I still approach shamanism with an attitude of skepticism. However, there are many aspects of shamanism which I see as extremely valuable, irrespective of whether spirits are ‘real’ or not (I will return to the ontological status of spirits later). One cross-cultural theme of shamanism which resonates with my own classical upbringing is the almost universal insistence on time spent alone. This generally also includes deprivation and self-discipline. Shamans across the Amazon spend months in the wilderness (‘el monte’), avoiding salt, sugar and sex, and ingesting the plants whose spirits they wish to come to know (usually, but not always, in combination with ayahuasca). This period of near-fasting is known as a ‘dieta’. Beyer (2009) states that: ‘It is said that to become a banco, a supreme shaman, one must diet for more than forty years’ (p.56). The solitary nature of shamanic initiation also emerges from an account given by Igjugarjuk, a Caribou Eskimo shaman on the north Canadian tundras, to the Danish scholar and explorer Knut Rasmussen in the 1920s. During Igjugarjuk’s initiation, he was left alone in a tiny snow hut in the dark and freezing Arctic winter. Peqanaoq, the revered older shaman who was conducting Igjugarjuk’s initiation, instructed Igjugarjuk to think of nothing but the Great Spirit. After five days, Peqanaoq returned with a drink of lukewarm water, and after another fifteen, with a second drink and a bit of meat. That was all. Looking back on his initiation, Igjugarjuk told Rasmussen: ‘The only true wisdom lives far from mankind, out in the great loneliness, and can be reached only through suffering. Privation and suffering alone open the mind of man to all that is hidden to others’ (as cited in Campbell, 1970).

These sentiments resonate with my own Western upbringing because they echo the thoughts of thinkers as diverse as the Aeschylus, one of the fathers of ancient Greek tragedy, and Nietzsche, the German philosopher and master of the aphorism. In his play Agamemnon, the chorus intones pathei mathos, literally ‘suffer and learn’, but more poetically translated as ‘through suffering comes knowledge’. Somewhat similarly, in Twilight of the Idols (1889) Nietzsche states, ‘What doesn’t destroy me, makes me stronger.’ For both these thinkers, suffering is seen as the means through which an individual can grow in strength and knowledge. This is clearly reflected in shamanic traditions, all the more so when we bear in mind that the shamanic calling is often (but not always) first heard following a personal tragedy, the survival of a disease, or some other instance of profound suffering. The solitary nature of personal growth is not entirely foreign to a Western mindset. In significant ways, it reflects the ‘hero’s journey’ (also known as the ‘monomyth’) described by Joseph Campbell (1949) . The ‘hero’s journey’ refers to a basic pattern of separation, initiation and return which is found in many narratives from around the world. Campbell (1970) states: ‘A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow men.’ Campbell describes the narratives of Moses, Buddha, Odysseus and Christ in terms of the monomyth. In most examples of the hero’s journey, the central stage – initiation – must be undertaken alone. It appears that the enterprise of shamanism and the hero’s journey share key features. Perhaps they may even come to the same thing. A further aspect of shamanism which mirrors other spiritual traditions is the emphasis on self-control and restraint. In mestizo shamanism, there is the importance of the dieta – the

avoidance of all sugar, salt and frequently also fats. This is a considerable challenge to an apprentice’s strength of will. Beyers (2009) quotes the mestizo shaman Don Guillermo Arrevala: ‘To function in this world of shamanism…demands a certain measure of discipline, to live within the rules. Young indigenous people in these times don’t want to get involved in these studies… They prefer not to submit themselves to that type of strenuous apprenticeship.’ (p.385)

The discipline which is required for the dieta is in many ways a precursor for the much greater discipline required to avoid the easy and tempting route of becoming a sorcerer. A shaman uses his power and knowledge to heal people, while a sorcerer uses these qualities to harm others and to further his own ends. The battle between shamans and sorcerers is a constant theme in mestizo shamanism and it revolves crucially around the practitioner’s level of selfcontrol. Self-control and self-discipline are important in many other spiritual traditions. In the West, the lives of monks and nuns frequently exemplify these qualities. Eastern spiritual practices stress the central importance of the ability to control one’s mind through meditation. However, an important preparation for this is the control of one’s body and of one’s desires. Eastern traditions generally encourage restraint and, in more extreme cases, complete abstinence and seclusion. Buddhist monks in the remote Nepalese kingdom of Mustang, on the border with Tibet, spend three years and three days meditating in a cave. Food is left outside the mouth of the cave; throughout those three years, a monk is unlikely to communicate with another human being. Thus shamanism echoes many other spiritual traditions in stressing the importance of selfdiscipline and self-control.

Another aspect of shamanism whose attraction is very clear to me is shamanism’s capacity to provide answers and, hence, meaning. One of the most frustrating experiences of humans the world over is to suffer and not to know why. It is infinitely preferable to suffer and to know why one is suffering – a cut is infected, you have a stomach ulcer – than to suffer without knowing why. When someone who is suffering consults a mestizo shaman, the shaman will diagnose the patient during an ayahuasca ceremony. Frequently, the shaman will enlist the help of plant spirits to locate the source of the malady. However, the shaman will often also provide a reason for the malady – for instance, an illness might be caused by a magic dart which was blown into the patient by a sorcerer who was himself motivated by envidia – jealousy. Not only can the shaman cure the patient by sucking out the magic dart in a dramatic performance, but the patient also has a reason for his suffering – something which he did caused someone else to feel jealous. By contrast, although Western medicine can provide us with reasons for our suffering in the form of diagnoses, however, it is rarely able to answer the deeper question, ‘Why did it happen to me?’ Hence there is an existential aspect to the healing practices of shamanism which Western medicine lacks. So far I have described those aspects of shamanism which I readily understand, which resonate with me or which I find generally appealing. In doing so, I have also normalized shamanism to some extent. However, one of the central aspects of shamanism is the more challenging claim that shamans communicate with real spirit entities – not imaginary beings, not projections of their own subconscious, but real beings. Not only do shamans communicate with these beings, but they glean vital information from them, information which they use to benefit others. This communication takes place when the shaman’s state of consciousness is altered. In mestizo shamanism, the altered state of consciousness is induced by drinking the potent

ayahuasca brew. Beyers (2009) describes one shaman who states that the spirits are around us all the time, but it is only by drinking ayahuasca that they become visible to us. What is a skeptical westerner to make of this claim? One way in which we evaluate the truth of a proposition is by seeking to establish consensus. We tend to think that if just one person sees something, then it may well be a fiction. However, if lots of people see the same thing, then we are more likely to believe that what they saw was real. This is not an argument from necessity – there are many instances of one person being right and everyone else being wrong – but it has served as a useful guide in the past. This approach throws up some interesting results. Michael Harner (2005), describing his first experience of taking ayahuasca with the Peruvian Conibo in 1960-1961, writes on his website: ‘At first, it wasn’t so much the sense of myself that was different. But I was completely in awe of the fact that a whole other reality had opened up. This was a reality that could not be fantasy, because the experiences that I had were also experiences that the Conibo who took ayahuasca were having independently, down to concrete details, without ever having talked about them with me beforehand.’

Similarly, Beyers (2009) refers to the novel by Cesar Calvo Soriano, based on the story of Manual Cordova Rios. Rios was apprenticed to the old shaman Ximu. Ximu, apparently, controlled the visions of his young apprentice, ‘calibrating the hallucinogenic apparitions in the mind of the young man…’ (p.228). This may be another example of shared visions. However, when we say that something is real, we generally mean that its existence does not depend upon our perceiving it. Only the idealist school of philosophy would argue that a table ceases to exist when there isn’t anyone there to perceive it. If things that are real exist independently of being perceived, then why is it that the spirits which shamans see differ

significantly from culture to culture? For instance, in their altered states of consciousness, mestizo shamans see plant, snake and jaguar spirits. Igjugarjuk saw ‘the Great Spirit’, Native American shamans see eagle and bear spirits, and voodoo practitioners have their own panoply. Is it likely that spirits, like humans, have geographical locations? If Igjukarjuk had traveled to the Amazon basin, would he have seen the plant spirits? Is it not more likely that the spirits which shamans see are based, at least in part, on culturally determined expectations? But if the spirits depend to such an extent on the perceiver, can we still say that they are real in the sense that a table is real? At this point it may be necessary to recognize another, quite extraordinary possibility. Maybe the truth is not that spirits are less real than tables, but rather that tables, and every other aspect of consensual reality, are not as real as we think they are. And, in fact, there are good reasons for thinking this. For a start, the way that humans perceive the world is only one way amongst many. A bat, which bounces sonar waves off objects, will perceive the world quite differently. It is likely that there are differences between the ways that individual humans see the world – color blindness would be an extreme example of this. We don’t know what the world ‘really’ looks like at the best of times, and therefore we should not be so quick to dismiss as illusory or fictitious the spirits who are ‘seen’ through altered states of consciousness. Beyers (2009) makes a similar point in the context of his discussion of ‘filling in the gaps’. He argues that the visual process, in normal functioning (and particularly in Charles Bonnet syndrome), has the capacity to fill in perceptual gaps. He writes: ‘Such gap filling is in fact part of our everyday perceptions. Our retinal images are distorted, tiny, and upside down; most of the retina is nearly color blind and has severely limited powers of discrimination; the eye is in nearly constant motion; yet we see a world that is relatively stable, detailed, and consistent.

We are constantly filling in perceptual gaps…’ (p.258). Beyers goes on to argue that the spiritual visions produced by ayahuasca are similar to these gap-filling processes. There is no categorical difference between normal perception and ayahuasca visions, it is just a question of degree. In both cases the brain is actively involved in the creation of what we perceive to be ‘out there’. Beyers suggests that ‘perhaps we are hallucinating all the time’ (p.259). It is very counterintuitive to think that the world as we generally perceive it is a hallucination or the creation of our own minds. For one, despite small individual differences, do we not all perceive objects in more or less the same way? It is very unlikely that you can see a table where I don’t, although we may disagree on the precise color. Furthermore, is there not an obvious difference between matter and spirit? The material world is wholly ‘out there’ and, although we may perceive it in uniquely human ways, it nevertheless does not depend upon being perceived by humans for its continued existence. However, there is a school of thought which would deny many of these assumptions. Monism is the view that all phenomena – both material and non-material – are essentially one. From a monistic viewpoint, there are no meaningful distinctions. There is a unity beneath all the apparent diversity. One school of monism holds that everything is composed of mind. This would mean that there is no longer any ontological difference between a plant spirit as seen in an ayahuasca vision and the table in front of me – they are all just facets of universal mind. Another school of monism holds that all material and nonmaterial phenomena can be reduced to some underlying substance such as energy. This latter view is, in my understanding, the one which best fits the current theories of quantum physics. Monism also underlies most Eastern schools of thought – Hinduism’s Advaita Vedanta declares that ‘All is Brahman’. Monism is important in the context of this discussion because it breaks down the false dichotomy between matter and spirit. That dichotomy is one

which is rooted in western thought, but it may be misguided. The spirit world – which may itself be reduced to pure mind or to bundles of energy – is not necessarily any less real than the table in front of me. It seems to me that a monist world view does help to make sense of a spirit world. However, even with this monist world view, shamanism still holds many mysteries. For instance, shamans communicate with the spirits in order to glean information, specifically with a view to healing. But how do the spirits communicate, and how effectively do shamans heal? Beyers (2009) describes the shaman don Juan. He writes: ‘If don Juan can do even a tiny part of what he claims – cure breast cancer, for example - then by all rights he should be an immensely wealthy man, teaching his techniques at major hospitals and medical schools’ (p.149). In answer to the question of whether shamans do actually heal, Beyers states, rather disappointingly, that ‘There are remarkably few data on this question. In particular, even moderately long-term follow-up is lacking’ (p.149). Of course, it is important to establish an operational definition of healing, and the question of prior expectations and placebo effects will no doubt be a thorny one. Nevertheless, it does seem to me that in principle it ought to be possible to conduct research to evaluate the efficacy of shamanic healing. Although I feel that a monist world view does help to make sense of the existence of a spirit world, nevertheless, there are aspects of mestizo shamanism which, for want of a better expression, strike me as absolutely nuts. For instance, it is rather hard to get one’s head around the mestizo notion of tsentsak, the shamans’ magic darts. Beyers (2009) writes: Similarly, among the Shuar, the master shaman vomits tsensak, magic darts, in the form of a brilliant substance. The master shakes the shinku leaf rattle over the apprentice’s head and body, singing to the tsentsak, makes profound throat-clearing noises, and spits out the

phlegm on the palms and the backs of the apprentice’s hands, then on the chest, head, and finally the mouth; it is then swallowed – painfully – by the apprentice.’ (p.93) Tsentsak can also be received by blowing. The master shaman will transfer the magic darts to his apprentice by blowing into the crown of the head. Beyers was informed by one master shaman ‘…that tsentsak received in phlegm are less liable to leave the body accidentally than those received en aire, by blowing. “Sometimes it is enough to stumble,” he said, “and, whoops, the tsentsak leave”’ (p.94). In order to ensure that the magic darts don’t accidentally leave the body, the apprentice will have to spend the next week in bed, ‘without coughing or speaking loudly, with one hand always covering the mouth. The apprentice also drinks tobacco juice night and day to feed the darts’ (p.94) The magic darts can be used for healing as well as for attack. They are thought to have a mind of their own and to desire human flesh – it requires great self-control on the part of the shaman to resist the temptation to use them for sorcery. However, this leads me to another unattractive feature of mestizo culture: there is a deep-seated belief in innate human aggressiveness. References to sorcery, jealousy and the desire to harm others abound in Beyer’s book. The Amazon appears to be a frightening place – not because of the jungle or the animals, but because of other humans. These complex dramas are frequently played out within the person of the shaman, either because the shaman must resist to temptation to do evil, or because he must heal those who have been the victims of the aggression of others. I can’t help feeling that the world view of the mestizo shaman is a peculiarly dark one. Perhaps human nature is as aggressive and malevolent as mestizo culture believes, but there are many who would disagree. In conclusion, I still feel that shamanism is a very complex phenomenon. There are aspects of shamanism, such as the meaning-making function, which I find very appealing and often

lacking in modern life in the west. The shamanic approach to healing is holistic: it pays attention to all aspects of an individual’s life and avoids the narrow reductionism and sterile categories of western medicine. I also feel that the existence of a spirit world is quite possible, especially when conceptualized through the lens of monism. The thought that shamans can glean information from the spirits is intriguing: I would be very interested by any research which attempted to evaluate the efficacy of this information in healing patients. However, I find it hard to know what to make of some of the more obscure doctrines and practices of mestizo shamanism: there seems to me to be some difference between belief in a spirit world and belief in the necessity of swallowing regurgitated magic darts. Finally, the world view of mestizo shamanism in the Upper Amazon does seem to be a dark and frightening one, though possibly, from the mestizo perspective, my own world view would seem rather naïve.

References Beyers, S. V. (2009). Singing to the Plants: A guide to mestizo shamanism in the Upper Amazon. Albuquerque, NM: Univerity of New Mexico Press. Campbell, J. (1970) Schizophrenia, the inward journey. Retrieved November 3, 2010, from www.mindspring.com/~berks-healing/campbell-schiz.pdf Harner, M. (2005). My path in shamanism. In Walsh, R. & Grob, S. (Eds.), Higher wisdom. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, retrieved from http://www.shamanism.org/articles/article16page2.html Nietzsche, F. (1889) Twilight of the idols. In Large, D. (trans.) Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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