To: K-list
Recieved: 2002/08/30 07:59
Subject: [K-list] Shamanism (Was: Ida, Pingala debate)
From: Joseph Miller

> > >I dunno, I'm a Shaman, spirit taught me directly.
> >
> >Interesting, most of the Shaman I know also had teachers. >Well since we
>haven't met, all of the Shaman I know have >or had teachers.
>
>Then they were fortunate.. or perhaps they are not really Shamans. The
>definition of a Shaman is pretty specific, as I described in another post.
>What you describe is not it.

Angelique,

This is interesting. I obviously missed your other post. What is a shaman to
you?

All I have to go on is a bit of reading about African and South American
shamanism and years of contact, work, and interaction with Native American
shaman and their students in North America. I've been going on what they
think it is and what I've been told by them.

Must say as someone is has about 1/4 of his genetic code coming from Native
American/American Indian ancestors I must take exception to and insult from
the idea you expressed that having teachers would mark the
shaman/priests/medicine men of other nations as well as my own as "perhaps
are not really shaman."

There was a great tradition of lineages among the native peoples of North
America, much like exist in India with orders of monks/swamis, where certain
knowledge was passed down from teacher to student. These lineages were
usually within a clan, but that was not the case for all nations. Of course
the years of effort to destroy the societies and going after the religion
and its leaders first took its toll.

Among the living those lineages as organized bodies exist in very few places
today. None are what they were. But almost every concentration of Native
Peoples will have a shaman or someone trying to fill that role and he/she
will have had a teacher. Again because of the genocide some of these shaman,
and their teachers, are not all they could be because so many of the great
shaman were killed before they could teach the bulk of their knowledge. Or
the young wanted to go act white and didn't want to learn so they had no one
to teach.

You can see why I can not help but wonder at casting aspersions on the idea
that a shaman with a teacher might not be a shaman.

Namaste.

Joe

http://www.kundalini-gateway.org
http://www.domin8rex.com/serpent/spirit/kindex.htm

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