ILLNESS AND INITIATION
ENTRANCES INTO DEATH
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For the shaman, illness and death, which are one and the same, are the necessary
ingredients of initiation into reality. The illness in the shaman
is an illness-unto-death. The healing is only achieved after the acceptance of death.
The works of Carlos Castaneda refer to the functioning of death as an adviser that can be
encountered after the initiate has dropped his "solid" body, or the
consciousness which is dualistic and egocentric.
"An immense amount of pettiness is dropped if your death makes a gesture to you, or if you catch a glimpse of it, or if you just have the feeling that your companion is there watching."
And
"'Death is the only wise adviser that we have. Whenever you feel, as you always do, that everything is going wrong and you're about to be annihilated, turn to your death and ask if that is so. Your death will tell you that you're wrong; that nothing really matters outside its touch. Your death will tell you, "I haven't touched you yet."
(p.51 Castaneda, C.: 1972)
Don Jaun, Castaneda’s teacher, refers to the initiate who is already dead in life. The Shamanic dimension accepts that the dead can exist in the world of the living. There is no separation between the two. These separations are fictions constructed by our mode of consciousness. It is the illness, the entrance into death, that teaches the Shaman the methods and mode of his vocation.
The means of access to knowledge and research on initiation and death is constantly being extended by transformations in western science and the rationalistic disciplines. The distance between modern psychology and the non-dualistic meaning of illness and death is, for example, narrowing. In the breaking down of the dualistic metaphysical world view which is collapsing, as it were, under the weight of its impotency, the world of the Shaman and the psychologist is coming closer together as is the world of the Shaman and the physicist. There seems to be the slow emergence of a new configuration of thought. There are many who believe that it is the purpose of all art, and this is wider than the conventional definition of art, in this pre-millennium time to trace the thread of this change and of this movement into the mode of art and thinking that is to come.
The texture of illness that we
encounter in Shamanism is an illness which is the natural precursor to the death of the
Shaman and his initiation into the world of non-duality. These three elements of illness,
death and initiation describe in a single movement in the Shamanic world. This movement
can only be separated at the expense of missing the flow and structure of Shamanism. Much
like the wave particle in physics, which is both a wave and a particle at the same
time,… the Shamanic movement can only separated from the vantage point of our
language and conceptual perspective. Each phase of the Shamanic texture recalls the other
and can best, but awkwardly, be described as an illness unto death.
One modern estimate of the kind of movement described above, or metaphor for this
experience, is that of modern psychological descriptions of mental illness. Here we find a
perfect example of the shifting paradigms in thought. Whereas in the past the dualistic
mode placed illness and health as two primary opposites, the move in this century is
towards a realisation that health somehow lies coiled within illness and vice versa. As in
other areas of thought, certain fields of psychology are moving away from the dualistic
distinction which have also formed the basis for so many other distinctions such as race,
class etc.
The function of the Shamanic imagination is to heal. This is a reversal of the sickness
or a transmutation so that it becomes health. The illness of the modern world is expressed
by Rene Guénon as a separation of humanity from its true nature.
" For in civilisations such as this, where a kind of rift has formed between two orders of instruction, superimposed without ever being opposed, "exoterism" requires "esotericism" as its necessary complement, when this esotericism is misunderstood, the civilisation is no longer directly attached to its superior principles by any effective bond and soon loses all of its traditional character, because elements of this order which survive are like a body abandoned by its spirit. These are then impotent to form anything but a sort of empty formalism, which is precisely what has occurred in the modern Western world.odern Western world.
( P.24 Guénon,R.,:1984
The descriptions of Shamanic illness vary to a certain degree but are constant in the
emphasis on a change of consciousness within the Shaman. This situates him as an alien in
the community in which he exists. Our understanding of this illness is colored by our
perceptions of illness as a negative quality and the ethnographic literature is useful to
the extent that it records the co-operation and the support of the community in supporting
the shaman in his illness rather than seeing it as a pathology. But it is the texture and
meaning of the illness itself, rather than its social concomitants, that we wish to
discuss at this juncture.
The following describes the illness of the Shaman.
" Unlike the medicine man, the Shaman's adoption of his profession is in many cases not voluntary. The future Shaman's experience of being called seems frequently to consist in a compulsive state from which he sees no other means of escape than to 'Shamanize'. It is often clear, particularly from reports from Siberia, that the man who is to become a Shaman consciously does not wish to do so at all, but is driven and forced to it by the 'spirits', and finally, in order not to perish, takes the only path open to him and becomes a Shaman. The future Shaman, the young man suited for Shamanizing, is a sick man. He suffers from psychopathic or epileptic states and is very often also physically ill. He cannot escape the demands of the spirits, which drive him deeper and deeper into the illness, although he very often tries to resist. He gets into a situation, into a mental illness, from which he can find no way out but death or the assumption of the office of Shaman."
( p, 11. Lommel:1967.)
Secondly, the Shaman's sickness, from the western cultural perspective, is seen as psychotic. Psychosis has, traditionally, a preferential value connotation in that is seen only as the inability to relate to normal reality. But it is also the entering into another, albeit unacceptable, reality.
The third aspect has often been ignored. This refers to the observation that the Shaman cannot choose his illness and has no alternative but to Shamanise in order to "heal" himself. This points towards the facticity of the non-egocentric and non-self-centred mode of existence which is the very prefiguring of the Shamanic experience. The cogent point is that the Shaman does not function within a world which exists according to the rules of normal reality. The Shaman and Shamanic illness are a radical move away from the rule of self and subject orientated existence which forms the foundations of the modern western perception of reality. For the anthropologist this fact appears as evidence of a loss of will and a negative form of possession viewed with a sort of horror by the Western analyst.
Furthermore, the mundane perspective of reality is flawed in that it is a perspective, an illusion, a projection from a dualistic mode of perception. Therefore, the Shamanic world and the discussion of illness must be entered into with a careful eye for the western presuppositions that relate the Shamanic world always to the rules and norms of the contemporary and " modern" perspectives.
It is this loss of centrality, seen in popular theory as uncertainty, that is in fact
that mirrors the crisis in the western world. The crisis is not so much the loss of centre
but rather a clinging to the need for centrality and a stability aligned with the self.
What is seen to be an illness is revealed as a fear, a fear of discovery of a world not in
control of the self. A further aspect which compounds the complexity of Shamanic illness
and death is the primary nature of Shamanic trance as suggested by Eliade. In other words,
Shamanism cannot be seen in its totality as a phenomenon conditioned by societal and
cultural parameters. Rather, according to Eliade, it is a "primary phenomenon."
An analysis and comparison of this phenomenon leads to an understanding of
"`meaning" rather than to "a typology or morphology of religious
data." (Jones.R.: 1968 )
It is something that occurs without a necessary relatedness to society, history or
culture. This area situates Shamanism as a purely experiential event.
The Shamanic illness is nothing short of a recomposition and a
restructuring of the entire body and spirit of the initiate. The illness is an entrance
and as such is a radical disjunction with the world of ordinary reality. The scenes of
dismemberment are graphic illustrated in the ethnographic literature.
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The understanding of the dismemberment of the Shaman presents a range of
interpretations and perspectives.
Hillman understands the dismemberment "as a psychological process involving a
"bodily experience"-an experience which would result in the abandonment of
"central control," i.e., the dethronement of the ego and its hegemonic position
in the totality of psychic life.
( p. 88 Avens:1984.)
Heidegger sees the dismemberment of the body and death as a transformative processes:
"According to Heidegger as well, to go down into the ghostly twilight means "to lose oneself" in the sense of loosening one's bonds and slowly slipping away. And yet, such loosening is not a literal end. "Day goes through evening into a decline that is not an end, but simply an inclination to make ready that de- scent by which the stranger goes under into the beginning of his wandering."
(p.88. Avens:84
The suggestion is that the dismemberment of the body has deeper and more significant
meanings than what would appear on the surface. In terms of the Shamanic praxis, the
dismemberment is a real and factual transformation of the entire being to an extent and
depth which is beyond an understanding based on the parameters of dualistic thought.
The nature of the illness is revealed now as a creative act and not a destructive one.
The illness is a catalyst for the creative response in the Shaman. This is not to suggest
that creativity must be seen as a form of escape, rather the illness is the creative urge
itself. One has only to think of the numerous examples of the connection between
creativity and mental illness in western artists.
" A creative component in the personality of the shaman becomes active, which enables him to overcome his pathological predisposition. The essential factor in his experience of being called is the demand made upon him to become artistically creative."
(Lommel:1967.)
The following states the positioning of death and illness in a new light.
"Death, however, is not understood by Heidegger as the conclusion of earthly life: it is "neither a catastrophe, nor . . . a mere withering away in decay" but the "twilight dusk." "Dusk" is not only the twilight of the end, for the morning, too, has its twilight. Twilight is also rising. Thus "death" means the "going down," a downfall into the "ghostly twilight." The poet, says Heidegger, sees the soul, "something strange," as destined to follow a "path that leads not to decay, but on the contrary to a going under. This going under yields and submits to the mighty death. . . ."
( p. 163. Heidegger.,M. On the Way to Language. And p.87 Avens:1984)
"Initiation always signifies death and resurrection. This is as true of the rites of passage marking the entry to a new phase of life as it is of Shamanic initiation."
(P. 94.Kalweit:1988)
"The former life must be destroyed and erased. During the rites of puberty performed in tribal cultures, the initiates, after their period of isolation, often speak a new language when they return to the village, or they have lost their memory, forgotten their previous existence. That is why they are given. new names and in some cases have to be reintroduced to the rules of their culture.
(Ibid.p 94)
"During their initiation Shamans may also acquire a secret esoteric language that brings them into contact with higher powers. They converse with each other in this language, which is not understood by the other members of the tribe."
(Ibid.)
The Shamanic illness can be understood as a mood structure. By mood structure we imply
a change in the total being and positioning of the Shaman in terms of all his physical and
spiritual elements. Just as it makes no sense in nuclear physics to speak of solid and
empty when elections leap to different levels without having passed through space, so it
needs a new sense of creative thinking to understand that the terms body and spirit are no
longer tenable within the framework of Shamanic experience. This radical shift into a new
existence is illustrated by the manner of the illness and the initiation.
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The description of Shamanic death points to a creative component and a resurrectionary aspect. It is significant that much of the above relates in a remarkable way to the work of modern psychologists and psychiatric discoveries in working with schizophrenic and psychotic patients.
A clue to the meaning of creativity, through illness and the confrontation with death, is seen in the study of the schizophrenic. Creativity is defined in a different way in this area of experience as essentially the lifting off of the barriers which obstruct the natural process.
As a precursor to understanding the creativity of the so-called mentally ill, we may
turn to Versluis and the history of Western traditional magic.
"Magic is none other than the dropping of this illusion ( of the ego-based dualistic reality), and of this habit energy, for to drop it implies freeing that energy-which normally is used to maintain our habitual world….."
(P.13 Versluis.1986.)
In a very real sense the act of creative imagination for the schizophrenic is a dropping
of the habitual constructions of reality which cause the patient to be seen as mad and
deviant. In the face of death the Shaman also drops this habitual use of energy and
transfers this energy usage to other dimensions and other praxis. In another world, Zen
master Dogen open up the world of the creative by stating that the essence of
enlightenment is the "dropping and mind and Body."
Therefore, creativity begins with the illness which breaks through the habitual
patterns of seeing and acting and opens up a world of creativity which is not confined or
bound by constructs. An unconstructed reality is not conceivable from the Western point of
view. It simply makes no sense for the West and hence the post-modern dilemma which tries
to find a way out of constriction but which is still bound to its antecedents.
Here we can see the reason for Eliade’s insistence that the Shamanic experience is
primary and not a secondary phenomenon that is intrinsically linked to history or culture.
The Shamanic experience, like that of the schizophrenic is a releasement from boundaries
and not the re-establishment of cultural-historical parameters. The relationships to the
ordinary word are experienced in a completely different way by the schizophrenic. There is
a distortion of the normal form as well as a distortion of self -perception.
"Our data imply that these effects are produced by the release of tendencies inherent in the primitive process but held in cheek by a process of stabilising the visual field"
( p 27 Silverman : 1967.)
The most important aspect here is that the Shaman is not only released from the social,
habitual boundaries, but also from the shackles of self. This, in Buddhist terms, is the
beginning of enlightenment. The Shaman is released from the necessity to restablish
himself at every moment, to check, as it were, on his self-existence.
"Magic is the recognition of this constant habitual recreation, and the consequent realization that the magician can in fact change his orientation from horizontal to vertical, in effect manifesting the celestial realm upon earth. That is to say, the magician manifests more pure aspects of being than those maintained through habit energy."
(Ibid.)
Silverman directly relates the schizophrenic to the Shaman. In his article entitled Shamans
and acute Schizophrenia he states the essential relationship between the Shaman and
the schizophrenic:
Silverman directly relates the schizophrenic to the Shaman. In his article entitled
Shamans and acute Schizophrenia he states the essential relationship between the Shaman
and the schizophrenic:
"both the pathological and the Shamanistic types of behaviours and cognition under consideration here are the result of a specific ordering of psychological events. The essential difference between the two lies in the degree of cultural acceptance of the individual's psychological resolution of a life crisis. Thus the same behaviours that are viewed in our society as psychiatric symptoms may, in certain other societies, be effectively channeled by the prevailing institutional structure or may perform a given function in relation to the total culture.
(P.23 Silverman: 1967.)
Modern psychology has moved towards the realisation that the psychotic episode is not a deviation but an entrance into what Wallace calls a "mazeway resynthesis". This refers to the confrontation with a situation of extreme anxiety which readjusts the Shamanic personality in a radically altered way.
"Wallace conceives of the process of becoming a Shaman as an instance of "mazeway resynthesis." This term refers to the sudden re- organisation of one's mode of structuring the world in an attempt to make sense of a highly anxiety-provoking environment."
(Ibid.p.25)
But the creativity of the Shamanic experience of death cannot be grasped by
conceptions, even those as interesting as the mazeway resynthesis.
The Shaman, faced with the threat or, possibly the teachings of death, encounters a
complete breakdown of the habitual parameters of reality.The idea of resynthesis is still
at a remove from this experience.
As Silverman states:
"The content of the imagery often seemed to be unrelated to the individual's prior personal experiences."
(Ibid.)
The creative imagery that
ensues from the initiatory experience is of another level and of another dimension of
meaning.
"The high regard in which the Shaman is held stems principally from the fact that he has succeeded in integrating into consciousness a considerable number of experiences that, for the profane world, are reserved for dreams, madness, or post-mortem states. The Shamans and mystics of primitive societies are considered-and rightly-to be superior beings; their magicoreligious powers also find expression in an extension of their mental capacities. The Shaman is the man who knows and remembers, that is, who understands the mysteries of life and death…. He is not solely an ecstatic but also a contemplative . . . "
(Eliade 1958:102).
The similarities between the Shamanic and the schizophrenic are outlined in the following."Eliade writes:
The total crisis of the future Shaman, sometimes leading to complete disintegration of the personality and to madness, can be valuated not only as an initiatory death, but also as a symbolic return to the precosmogonic chaos, to the amorphous and indescribable state that precedes any cosmogony . . . [1958 : 89]
Sullivan describes a comparable state in the schizophrenic:
The experience which the patient undergoes is of the most awesome, universal character; he seems to be living in the midst of struggle between personified cosmic forces of good and evil, surrounded by animistically entivened natural objets which are engaged in ominous performances that it is terribly necessary-and impossible-to understand . . . "
(P. 28 Silverman:1967.)
The area of psychotic and schizophrenic dissolution and derangement point to similar
areas of knowledge and the encounter with death. And the encounter with death transforms
and transmutes so that the patient becomes the teacher.
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Gary Smith. 1966.