Redpill me on shamanism /x/

System of ritual symbolic manipulation resulting in dissolved structure of perspectives

Reaching altered states of consciousness through different techniques (meditation, sensory deprivation or overload, usage of psychodelics etc.) in order to ascend to the spirit realm, gain knowledge, contact entities/ancestors, regain lost souls of sick or mad people. Shaman can be at the same time a medicine man, a tribal magician, a local wise/herbalist - but all of them are not necessarily a shaman. A shaman has to travel to other worlds, he's the main manipulator of sacrum.

Shamanic initiations involve seclusion, deprivation, vision quests - ultimately symbolic death of the candidate (visions of being devoured by entities, ego death). From the anthropological point of view, a shaman is a man who, experiencing what we would call mental disease, managed to compose his self from a scratch, keeps his "mental illness" under control and helps people out with their spiritual (and not only) problems.

Important to note that what makes a shaman different from a mystic is that, aside from just seeking knowledge and enlightenment, a shaman uses ASCs to help people.

>>19047918
Does there happen to be any decent sources on legitimate shamanic techniques/rituals?

>>19049428
>legitimate
why can't you just do your own thing? Get high on dmt or something and dance around a fire. You could burn some sage. IDK get creative dude.

>>19047918
Ok, but bullshit aside, they just liked to party hard as fuck and got the idiot tribals to think they were magic men, right? That's what it sounds like. Could shamen the first ever party animals? They did wear animal pelts ans bones and shit, right? It makes sense.

>>19049440
Mushrooms do grow around here, guess ill eat a bunch and get naked

>>19049428
it wont mean shit if you arent attached to it ancestrally.

you dont want to be one of those white guys wearing indian feathers dancing with a tomahawk

most cultures have their early roots based in some form of shamaism. find the one for yours if you REALLY need an outline to go by

>>19049428
Anthropology books on magic, witchcraft, and religion around the world should have some information.

>>19049479
lel are they Psilocybin shrooms? you know you can't just eat any mushroom and get high, right? If that were the case, mushroom pizza would be illegal.

>>19047918
>seclusion, deprivation, sensory effects
>gaining knowledge from extremely abstract and impossible to describe thoughts, often forget the actual thought itself
>dreams of teaching people
>understanding of systems to help people with all problems and grow, the only real activity enjoyed

>visions of being devoured by entities, ego death
>lifelong mental disease, yet rooted in reality
>a disgusting vision very recently of the process of ego death

If someone was undergoing this, what should they do? What books should they read, or resources should they access?

>>19049515
Yes lmao, p.cubensis is very common here

>>19049748
wtf free shrooms? where do you live

>>19047918
>From the anthropological point of view, a shaman is a man who, experiencing what we would call mental disease, managed to compose his self from a scratch, keeping his 'mental illness' under control and helps people out with their spiritual (and not only) problems.

I already have a collection of cozy garments and large, self-made jangly jewelry. Hell all I need is a good grove and I'm set.

>>19049428
>be nuts
>punish yourself
>do drugs
>give advice
>dance around people so they think it's some kind of magic when you smoke out your hut and give them some casual therapy

>>19049465
You talk bullshit my friend. You don't need to believe in magic to ackmowledge the meaning of shamanism for a shaman and for a primitive culture.

Levi-Strauss wrote that a tribal magician performs simulation that is from his side both acknowledged and automated, comparing it to neurotic simulation.
Fair enough, but, as I already wrote in my previous post, a shaman can, but doesn't have to be a local wizard. He achieves altered states of consciousness.
And here is when it gets, even from a scientific point of view, interesting.
Cognitive science of religion considers trance rituals to be a part of human cultural niche - and an adaptive thing. It is theorised that rituals provide placebo, states of relaxation and restore balance between the parts of our autonomous nervous system that gets naturally desynchronized with time. Also, people participating in a ritual seem to synchronise with each other, which creates strong bonds - again, very important for a primitive society. Rythmical ritual has a potential to cure stressogenic and psychological disorders.

You need to grasp the concept that achieving altered states of consciousness is not just a fun thing at parties - and, imo, it shouldn't be that. It leads you to the world of symbols, helps connect with knowledge that you are not aware of.

My teacher once told me that Atran, a US anthropologist, was once asked (unofficially) wether he, while spending time with a tribe, took a hallucinogen. He admitted that he did and that he had very precise visions about habits of local animals that he never had any conscious knowledge about. After the experience, he consulted this with the local shamans who confirmed everything.
I asked if he wrote about it in any book. The teacher laughed and said, "No, you don't write about something like that".

Tl;dr No, they didn't just like to party.

>>19050309
Punish yourself?

Jesus fucking Christ. Read a book.

Symbolic death is a part of initiation rituals. Period. Not only shamanic rituals, although there they come naturally due to experiencing ego death while in ASC. A boy becoming a man will also symbolically die - it's performed to greet him in his new state.
(Granted, in some shamanic practices you will find self-harm, but that's sensory overload. Just like rythmical music and dancing in heavy shaman costume is leading to sensory overload).

Shamanism seems to be a base for all of religions and a shaman - a proto-messianic figure. Being devoured, eaten by a big animal - motives you can find in Old Testament. Being dead (mostly for 3 days), going in this time to the underworld and then to higher realms, returning to earth - I really wonder what this shamanic practice reminds me about.

>>19049428
I would start with Mircea Eliade's "Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy". It's a bit old, it has some problems, but it will give you basic understanding and structure. Long and thorough. Anthropological work.
(Although he claimed that usage of hallucinogens is a degenerate version of shamanism, but in this case human biology proves him wrong. Also, he had very western understanding of a shaman as a special individual/psychotherapist, which isn't always the case. Among Bushmen, everyone is a shaman).
You could try Shirokogoroff's "Psychomental Complex of the Tungus", but I haven't read it. You definitely can read Stanislav Grof, he's a psychiatrist, but wrote a lot on human consciousness and LSD research. You can read/watch/listen to anything Terrence McKenna has to say about shrooms, DMT or Ayahuasca. Also read/watch (it's both a book and a documentary) "DMT: The Spirit Molecule".

THEN you can get creative.

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>>19050510
>>19050400
>>19050364
>>19047918

Thanks for the posts, anon. Not OP but interested. If you can post anything else (book recommendations, whatever you are interested on telling us) I will be glad of reading!

>>19050364
>"No, you don't write about something like that"
What a fucking faggot. And Jung gets bashed for being the only one with balls to write that. Makes me mad af.

>>19051032
Also samefag here again, I have read already McKenna's Food of the Gods, and I will pick from the library Mircea Eliade's one (if I am not wrong McKenna mentions it). Which other book by McKenna do you recommend to me?

Also, maybe not totally related, but in order to get to Levi-Strauss (I have read something by Saussure so some grasp on structuralism), where should I start?

Thank you in advance anon.

>>19047918
>>19050364
Here just to confirm your statement by personal experience. This is how it works. Drugs are the easy way in but can have serious drawbacks.

From Finland with love.

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i want to eat shroom nao :'(

>>19050293
South Fl, they grow extremely common after some rainy days

OP here, thank you for the recommended literature, I will definitely check it out

>>19051047
If you are interested in the wider picture of religion and ritual, I wouldn't jump immediately to Levi-Strauss. There are, imo, better ways of putting stuff together without getting too confused.
I would recommend starting from E. B. Tylor, "Primitive Culture", chapter "Animism". This is were he introduces the idea. He is an evolutionist of religion, so modern researchers consider him passé, but it's worth it. A bit archaic, but not painful to read.
Then go to Durkheim, "Elementary Forms of Religious Life". He was a sociologist, so it introduces religion as a social thing that glues society together. Also division into sacrum and profanum. If you want to challenge the idea of this division, read the introduction to Brent Nongbri's "Before Religion: a History of a Modern Concept". He argues that in a primitive society, there is no concept of religion as something divided from everyday life.
Then go to Clifford Geertz's "Religion as a cultural system" in "The interpretation of cultures: selected essays". It introduces religion and culture in general as a system of symbols. I like it in particular for a theory that what humans fear most is not death or cataclysms, but chaos and lack of understanding/ inability to create a model of reality.
If you then want to get to know Levi-Strauss, I'd say that "The Savage Mind" is the way, especially if you're interested in primitive/shamanic cultured. But I must say, I am not a fan of his writing.

That would be the boring necessary stuff.

>>19049560
The original shamans didn't have any books to read, at most they had another shaman to teach them. Either find another shaman or make your own path like many others have.

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>>19047666
With Shamanism you learn that every mushroom has a tale to tell. And if you remember the old language, you can read that tale just as well as any book.

It's the language of life.

Then life can get w e i r d, as you begin to realize that you can you read your own story even while you're also the one writing it. Sometimes people ask you to read their story for them.

Mostly it's about the drums, though. Because it's fun. You can drum through peace, you can drum through war. If you listen to your heartbeat, you can drum through anything. That alone is a kind of magic power.

I know it sounds odd at first, but you might appreciate the magic of the drum, if you ever reach a time in your life when you just can't even.

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Read the books by Lujan Matus.

>>19052442
Me again. If you want something more specific after that, I'd recommend:
Marcel Muss' (structuralist) chapter on death in "Sociology and Anthropology" - phenomena of people dying due to their strong belief that something bad is going to happen.
"Biogenetic Structuralism" by many authors - there's a text by Barbara Lex about how ritual adjusts and tunes people's nervous system.
"On Aggression" by K. Lorenz - shows how human ritual can be rooted in animal behaviours caused by fear and aggression.
"Ritual and Religion in Making of Humanity" by Rappaport. He has this theory that ritual is humans' antidote to problems caused by advancement of our language (lies, alternative). He sees rituals as basic, binary firm of communication. It sounds weird, but he's more convincing than me.

If you don't care about wide picture, religion, ritual, or don't want to read heavy academic texts, I recommend:
J. Clottes, D. Lewis-Williams, "The Shamans of Prehistory", chapters 5&6.
S. Grof, "Realms of the Human Unconscious".
T. McKenna "True Hallucinations". And, definitely, F. Goodman, "Exorcisms of Anneliese Michel". I know, it sounds useless, but I recommend chapter 9 to anyone. It's about possession from theological and biological point of view. Neurology, shamanic disease, divagation on possible reasons for some people's sensitivity to abnormal religious states. Worth giving a chance, I haven't get any religious propaganda vibes from this chapter.

>>19047666
it's cool if you want to learn about shamanism, but fuck off with the redpill meme please