Shamanic or Schizophrenic?

I didn't find this in a search so pardon me if it has. I think this is very important information. I have lived with this issue my whole life. I just would like to share. I am on the Shamans path. I thought I'd post it to see what you all think. Thanks guys and gals!

I can't watch vids right now. Can you maybe tell us what this is about??

I have always been fascinated with schizophrenia and shamanism so when I saw your thread title I had to look...If you could give those of us who can't watch it some info or links on it that would be great

reply to post by Shadowed


I ran across a site a few months ago you might really dig. They have ALOT of McKenna stuff on there and related discussions.
deoxy.org...
Thanks for the video.

edit to add: I have had trouble joining the forum there, so if you try and have luck at it let me know...


[edit on 14/8/2010 by Chamberf=6]

Thank you for this thread, I had never seen that video or heard those words before, but they are amazingly powerful.

Thank you for sharing that with me!!!!!!

Schizophrenia is effectively experiencing hypnogogia while awake in the "real" world.some forms. A shaman is in effect a spiritualist, tho some may vary. With practice much becomes possible. Lucid dreaming, obe, continuuity of conscience during phase transitions from here to there or there to here. Other abilities of the psyche.

Interesting video.

Shamanism is a catch-all term, describing a huge variety of practices in different times and places. All that the various shamanisms have in common is (1) no full time clergy, (2) personal or mystical experience is taken as authoritative, and (3) there is a respect for the spiritual stature of animals.

Not drug use, not sexual promiscuity, not mental illness. All those things can be found in some shamanic cultures, just as all those things can be found in some non-shamanic cultures.

Schizophrenia ia also a big place. Shamans are not generally schizophrenic. Notice point (1). Nobody makes their living being a shaman. So, there's a limit to how chronically sick a shaman can be.

The only real connection of the word schizophrenia with shamanism, so far as I know, is that in some shamanic cultures, acute schizophrenia, especially in adolescence, is an initiation experience.

Acute schizophrenia is a debilitating condition, while it lasts. People spontaneously recover, provided somebody cares for them during the weeks or months that they are unable to care for themselves. Shamans provide that service in shamanic cultures that use acute schizophrenia as a marker of those who are called. (And like jury duty, there are no volunteers in these systems.)

The shaman, then, is not mentally ill. The shaman in these cultures is somebody who was sick, was cared for, and will probably encounter somebody else who is sick, and help them through it. Like everybody else who recovers from acute schizophrenia, shamans who are former sufferers are now fine.

When drug use is promoted by the shaman, the purpose varies. One obvious use is for other people, who are not shamans, to have visionary experience, in order to confirm what the shaman says. In other words, the shaman may not be who is using the drugs.

As to content of visionary experience, ordinary dreams, acute schizophrenic hallucinations, hypnagogic hallucinations, drug induced hallucinations... all show the same imagery.

I suppose it is easier to drop a tab than learn how to remember dreams. It may also be convenient to get some control over time and place, and so possibly use that to shape a social, rather than an individual personal, experience.

But there is nothing availble with drugs that isn't available without drugs. It is laughing out loud funny that a video, which is supposedly all about going back to spiritual roots, promotes the signature message of industrialized medicine. Don't exert yourself; there's a pill for that.

reply to post by mblahnikluver


In a nut shell the movie is talking more or less about how Shamanic traits in people are being displaced in modern times. It(Modern culture) actually is down grading the abilities of humans to think for themselves and spirituality. In a very small nutshell.

Actually mblahnikluver see the post before this one (by eight Bits) it has a much better description about the video.

[edit on 15/8/10 by Shadowed]

[edit on 15/8/10 by Shadowed]