So, since this weekend has been memorial weekend, I have had a lot of free time on my hands. I recently found a collection of places that I would like to contact and hopefully go to with my ceremony. But since most people are on holiday, I will be beginning that tomorrow. I have been busy though!
I am about to head out of Pentwater and move on towards Ludington, and then hopefully I'll be taking off to North Manitou Island for 5 days or so. This is a leave no trace/camp where you want island of bare minimums. So a lot of seclusion. I'll most likely be away from all forms of electronics. I will however, be able to work a lot with my meditation practice and my shamanic practice outside of the ceremonies, individual counseling, and blogging that I do.
North Manitou is the bigger of the two islands, with more wilderness and less man-made structures. Although I have heard that a few of the old homes that existed before the land became a park still exist. There is only one spot on the entire island that allows for making a fire. I don't think they have bathrooms either. I guess I will find that out when I get there. :o
South Manitou is more populated and has more construction on it. I believe there are three designated campgrounds. It is also much smaller. It's too bad that my camera is still non-functional. : (
Also, I have received some feedback about the font color being hard to read against the background. I will see if there is any way to make it better.
Here we come to our third usage of religion.
3. Religion as an immortality project. This is using the technical term we earlier introduced, but the actual term itself need not be invoked. The idea is simply that religion is fundamentally a wishful, defensive, compensatory belief, created in order to assuage insecurity/anxiety. This meaning is often applied to theology, but it is also used for rational and secular endeavors, as when Becker says that Marxism is Soviet religion, meaning not just mana-search but death denial. This can occur, as we have seen, on any level, and simply reflects that level's inherent taboo avoidance. In this particular function, science does for the rational ego exactly what myth does for the childish ego and magic does for the infantile ego-helps to veil the apprehension of ultimate and inescapable mortality by providing a belief system to "hang on to." This seems especially true of "scienticians," that is, scientists whose rd-2 religion (mana religion) happens to be science itself. I have found that, when push comes to shove, they will guard their exclusively rational world view with a quivering passion every bit as charged with hoped-for immortality as that of a shrieking fundamentalist preacher. The point is simply that each level (short of the ultimate) tends to erect some sort of immortality project as part of its necessary defense structures, and this usage of religion simply keys on this particular funtion (although, typically, most of those who use this definition deny that there is any other.)
This is another one of those yes and no answers, depending on context. Let us explore the no answer first.
Mask Shamanism is not a wishful, defensive, compensatory belief, created in order to assuage insecurity/anxiety. First of all, all authentic religious disciplines have behind them a method of inquiry with reproducible evidence that can be verified by separate communities. This is, by another term, the scientific method. The scientific method has, by many people today, come to mean only empirical (or physical) evidence. Notice that, in our country, spiritual practice boomed with the discovery of empirical evidence supporting the fact that something is happening within these religious disciplines such as Buddhism, yoga, etc. Using the scientific method in the way that it was meant to be, shamanism actually has a minimum of 40,000 years of verified observations cross-culturally, from people who have never even met or heard of each other. The scientific revolution, despite all of the good things it has brought (such as the step away from pre-rational religion, more physical security, global connections, etc.), comes nowhere even close to having a body of that much evidence. The revolution taking place between science and religion is really the beginning of a more sophisticated inquiry of spiritual disciplines (our scientific materialist culture will have a hard time putting science in the appropriate context...much like fundamentalist religion did, and still does, with the scientific revolution.) This means more controlled studies, a more highly developed language, more precision with the mapping of the disciplines (as well as their findings), wading through cultural traps inherent in different cultural religions, etc. This last one is not used to help end culture. Rather, it allows for more freedom of expression with individual cultures and allows for the understanding that there are truths that rest above culture. This creates interdisciplinary dialogue which, with help from movements like the integral/AQAL, allow for all disciplines to be involved in the great quest for truth. Each discipline just has certain boundaries that, once crossed, becomes pathological.
Mask Shamanism is an immortality project. Rather, it can be a permanent one. More often than not it will act as a temporary immortality project. All disciplines working with identity and evolution, or development, are gearing you towards a certain structure. This has to happen if you are ever going to assimilate and adjust to a new identity (self-sense.) You begin to move on to the next level of development, integrate that sense of self as a stable identity, and then begin to dis-identify as you move to more subtle self-identities. If shamanism can only take you up to a certain level of development, than it can certainly be considered an eventual immortality project, given that there are higher stages of consciousness. But, if shamanism can take you to non-dual realization, then it is not an eventual immortality project (context in an endnote.) However, if you wish to remain within the certain stage that you are currently in, then you can fixate with it and use it to try and re-inforce your sense of self (or immortality project.) This can take root as "I believe in a soul and that my soul is going to heaven when I die," "This is my last birth into a human form," "it'll be ok, I'll re-incarnate again." Statements like these are often used to try and assuage the underlying fear or apprehension that you are eventually going to die and that, if you don't REALLY understand who you are or what reality is, you simply have no clue what lies ahead.
*endnote* - A little bit of context with the entire spectrum of human development may be important for you to fully understand what is being said. In our current cross-cultural analysis, people have found that the highest spiritual attainment possible rests with non-dual realization. Non-dual teachings, and teachers, have been found in both eastern and western traditions. Discussions with reality (especially non-dual) have within them an inherent problem. You inevitably wind up with contradiction. Quite seriously, nearly anything you say is a contradiction. That means that it can be true, false, both true and false, neither, partial, etc. This is because language is insufficient when it comes to trans-personal knowledge. however, this does not mean that there is no way to find ways to talk about it. It is just that language is a structure that helps to point out something very deep and profound. In other words, language is a map, not the actual territory. I am helping to create map of shamanism that is much more precise than the ones that currently, or have been, around. Discussions with Shamanism and non-duality will come later. Probably years down the road.
I believe that is all that is needed for this use #3 discussion. I have been tweaking our #2 blog here and there, making minor adjustments as I go along. So I will probably do the same here.
Ciao!
Justin
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