Shamans, start your rattles!’ With these words from our teacher, peering down benevolently upon us from the screen, we sit down on our mats and prepare to enter into non-ordinary reality via a shamanic journey. I’m taking part in a workshop on connecting and working with nature spirits, part of a program run by the Foundation for Shamanic Studies. This organisation was founded in the 1979 (https://shamanism.org/fssinfo/) by American anthropologist Michael Harner, who learned with shamans and medicine people from tribes in many different parts of the world, and was initiated into several of them. Dr Harner sought to develop a form of practice he called ‘core shamanism’ that distilled the essential teachings common to the world’s shamanic traditions: the shamanic journey, working with helping spirits, divination and healing. This was aligned with a spirit of reverence for the family of all life within creation, and with strong ethical principles regarding what forms of energy work are permitted. I was drawn to the FSS training because of this combination of authenticity, accessibility and also integrity, qualities not always found elsewhere in the ‘wild west’ of shamanic practice in the West, and rarely together.
Returning to this training, which I had first experienced in 2017, I was struck by how it illustrated some themes I had been pondering on in recent weeks, themes relating to the evolution of human consciousness and the challenges and needs of our present time. In his work ‘Further Along the Road Less Travelled’, M. Scott Peck reflects on the rise of the New Age movement, and ponders on whether it is a force for good or evil. He describes how the arid materialism, consumerism and reductionist science of modern US society gave rise to a movement in search of a better way, a movement that brought much good and necessary revitalisation to spiritual life, yet also was affected by a tendency to take the opposite extreme to the prevailing rigid social forms, throwing out the important and necessary elements of discernment, science and research, along with a sense of moral responsibility to the community. The result, at worst, was a collection of ungrounded, self-centred dreamers who would believe anything as long as it didn’t entail the hard work and sacrifice of a conscious, compassionate life.
I love Scott Peck and his writing, and it is in large part because of his compassion and integrity, which enables him to take the unfashionable middle path that I believe is desperately needed today. Thus he can speak for freedom and creativity but also responsibility and self-discipline, for intuitive insight and spiritual revelation but also scientific enquiry and critical thinking; and he has the capacity for self-examination and acknowledgement of his past mistakes that is the hallmark of a good therapist. Author Robert Persig (Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance) divided humanity into the classicists, who valued accuracy, reason, perfection and self-discipline, and the romantics, who valued creativity, feeling, spontaneity and freedom; Peck recognised that, if we are to grow into our full potential as human beings, we must cultivate and balance both qualities within us. In doing so, he harks back to the wisdom of Greek philosopher Aristotle, who describe virtuous conduct as being found in the balance between unhealthy extremes, and the Taoists of Ancient China, who similarly found the Way in the balancing of Yin and Yang.
To me, the FSS training is important because it is founded on this healthy balance of spiritual openness and a grounded practice. As Rudolf Steiner and many other authentic spiritual teachers emphasize, doing spiritual work requires just as much personal integrity and self-awareness as living a good life in ordinary reality – indeed more so, as the temptations of someone who is working with spiritual energies can be so much greater, and the results of transgressions so much more disastrous - the many examples from the last century of gurus who took advantage of their devotees, whether psychologically, financially or sexually, attest to this. There is also considerable danger in a premature opening up of spiritual centres without having done the work to ground and integrate the emerging consciousness – a danger of both damage to the fine etheric structure of the chakras and of descent into psychosis from which it can be difficult to return. The FSS approach combines a positive and compassionate outlook on journeying to the spiritual worlds with a care and prudence in dealing with the less wholesome entities that one may meet in those journeys, particularly when one is travelling in less evolved regions of the middle world.
However the FSS workshop also brought to light another aspect of the evolution of consciousness that I have been contemplating recently, and this relates to the stages of consciousness through which humanity has progressed in the course of our history. Rabbi Dr Marc Gafni is a brilliant, visionary thinker who I recently had the good fortune to come across in this interview with US podcast host Aubrey Marcus. Gafni describes how human conscious has steadily shifted since Greco-Roman times, but especially since the Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution from what he calls ‘pre-modernity’ to ‘modernity’. In pre-modern consciousness, people typically have close-knit communities, a strong connection to place, a clear moral framework for their lives, and the sacred is a real presence in their lives, usually experienced to a large degree in relation to the landscape in which they live. In contrast, modern consciousness is individualistic, materialistic, and characterised by an increasing alienation from place, community and nature, all of which are reduced to resources to be dominated and exploited. All of this makes a return to a pre-modern consciousness seem pretty appealing at first.
Yet the very place-rootedness of the premodern life that is such a source of strength also points to its major weaknesses: insularity, xenophobia and violence against the ‘other’. In the premodern world, the tribe on the other side of the ridge or river was very often viewed with suspicion and dislike, and its spiritual ways dismissed. Our teacher described how Mongolian shamans typically regarded the shamans from other communities as doing their rituals ‘wrong’, and implied that the results would be inferior because the spirits would not like them. Worse, many of the more warlike tribes, such as those of the Amazon, would utilise their shamans to conduct warfare against their enemies in the spirit worlds, even to the extent of keeping the spirits of deceased tribal members tied to the material plane so they could serve as foot soldiers in this kind of warfare. Thus, Gafni argues, premodern consciousness is connected with the sacredness of community, place and nature, yet lacks a sense of universality to its spirituality on a human level. Native American writer Brooke Medicine Eagle spoke of the difference between this ‘old way’ that she saw in some of the elders in her community and the ‘new way’ of universal consciousness that she saw emerging among other, often younger Native American and white spiritual seekers, a new way that was perhaps first seeded by divinely inspired spiritual teachers such as White Buffalo Calf Woman and Deganawida the Great Peacemaker, and strengthened in modern times by wise men and women such as Crazy Horse, Black Elk and Frank Fools Crow.
In the consciousness of modernity, as Gafni describes it, an awareness of universality gradually developed, and along with it came a belief in principles that apply to all regardless of culture, religion, gender or other localised attributes, including what we know as rights. This has been a positive step, leading to emancipation and empowerment for minorities and the oppressed in many areas of life. However modernist thinkers also saw that transcendent, heart-centred values such as love are perceived differently in different ages (for example the love of a Roman husband for the wife whom he owns like property is very different from what would be considered an expression of love in modern times), and, believing them unreliable, chose to abandon them for an exclusive focus on ‘real’ things that could be measured and counted. In doing so, the moral foundation on which rights and all moral, ethical and aesthetic frameworks rested was imperilled, and among many thinkers started to be replaced by purely instrumental judgments of value such as material wealth and ‘happiness’ for the greatest number (utilitarianism, classical economic theory and its grandchild neoliberalism are all examples of this). All manner of atrocities could then be contemplated if they led to an increase in net value to society, and for the industrial elites of the 19th century, this calculus quickly evolved to become about what brought net benefit to them as a class rather than society as a whole.
In Gafni’s view, the rise of postmodernism in the 20th century did not represent a profound break with modernism, but rather its logical extension. Postmodernists saw the same partiality and cultural conditioning that modernists had perceived in transcendent values, but they perceived that it extended to thinking and language as well, the very tools of supposedly ‘rational’ methods of sensemaking such as science and philosophy, leading them to a wholesale rejection of the notion of any universal truth at all. While this was often expressed by proponents in the context of attacking (or ‘deconstructing’) dominant narratives of oppressors, whether it be patriarchy, racism or colonialism, the rejection of truth and related concepts such as free will in effect further hastened the destruction of the weakened moral ‘ground’ of society, and enabled the exploitative individualism of late modern developed societies. Gafni sees this amoral individualism reaching its peak in the advocates of ‘transhumanism’ such as Yuval Noah Hariri, who dismiss as fantasies notions such as consciousness and free will, and look to a future where governments will embed technology in human life to enable total social control.
Gafni believes that the way out of the morass of post-modernism lies in rediscovering a sense of the sacred as resting upon underlying values and principles, while accepting that these are evolving rather than fixed and static, as pre-modern cultures believed. He argues that in the time in which we live, we are recovering an innate, direct sense of these values and principles, arising through a felt experience of the sacredness of life and of love for creation. Thus we are returning to the truths of the great mystical traditions that evolved in premodernity, but with an understanding that these truths are universal, not just for our tribe or religion, and that our perception of them is evolving as we evolve. I love how Gafni refrains from dismissing either modernism or post-modernism in this interview, instead describing their insights as ‘true but partial’. If we could only follow the wisdom and magnanimity in this phrase whenever we are listening to another’s beliefs, I think we would come a long way towards laying the foundations for a better society than the one we have now.
Ken Wilber, who Gafni counts as a close friend, wrote a book with a similar theme to Gafni’s entitled ‘The Pre/Trans Fallacy’. He also delineated three phases of consciousness, pre-rational, rational and trans-rational, and argued that many people make the mistake of confusing the first and last of these states – hence the title of his book. Pre-rational consciousness, according to Wilber, was founded on a sense of oneness with life and nature, but one that was wholly unconscious, like a newborn baby’s relationship with their mother and the world. The journey of attaining consciousness (symbolised in the Bible by Adam and Eve eating from the tree of knowledge) brought with it separation from life and the possibility of evildoing through the exercise of free will, yet the possibility also existed to recover this sense of oneness through spiritual practice, and this time it would be a consciously experienced sense of oneness. Poet T. S. Eliot evokes this beautifully in his poem Little Gidding when he describes how the end of our human quest will be when we ‘arrive where we started and know the place for the first time’.
I believe that Gafni and Wilber’s insights are of profound importance to all spiritual seekers in our age. It can be easy to see an oceanic state of unconsciously merging with life as the end goal of our quest, and then we become attached to chasing experiences that recreate these states, rather than seeking slower but safer paths to oneness that do not involve surrendering consciousness. Similarly, in our spiritually desolate and illiterate society, I believe the wisdom of past eras, including especially that of shamanistic cultures, has much to offer in helping us to reclaim our true spiritual nature. However it is important that we approach this knowledge with discernment; as I mentioned earlier, many shamanistic cultures include very dark and backward elements in their spiritual practices, and these will pull us backward if we play around with them.
How then can we know if the spiritual path we are embracing is ‘pre’ or ‘trans’? As Wilber’s account reveals, one important indicator is indeed consciousness. Note that this isn’t synonymous with thinking or intellectuality, but with being aware. As an example, shamanic journeys in the FSS tradition are undertaken in full consciousness, whereas some traditions involve the subject entering into a trance and losing their sense of self-awareness, or even leaving their bodies so that a discarnate spirit can enter them and use them to communicate with others. However there is another aspect of transrational consciousness, and this is implied in the ethical standpoint of the FSS training. We honour the sacredness of other beings in this work, and their rights to autonomy and dignity. Coercion, manipulation and taking advantage of others for personal gain have no place in this work, not even well-intentioned interference. Even healing work on another person must be undertaken with permission, unless perhaps such permission has no way of being obtained (such as in the case of a person who is psychotic or unconscious). Similarly, it can be tempting, once we have found a pathway to experiences of transcendent consciousness, to seek to use this as an escape from the pain of materialistic 21st century society. Yet spiritual knowledge in the shamanic traditions is not intended primarily for personal enrichment (unless by black sorcerers), but for the benefit of the community. It is only when we choose to bring the wisdom we have acquired to help bring healing and transformation to this world that we are truly on the path to the emerging ‘trans-rational consciousness’ that Wilber and Gafni describe.
This attitude could be described as compassion, reverence or unconditional love, among other names. It has been a thread running through all of the major religions, perhaps first coming into our collective awareness in the noble eightfold path of the Buddha, then in the Ten Commandments of Mosaic Law, and reaching its peak in the One who asked of us that we love our neighbour as ourselves. In Native American cultures it has been exemplified in the past 200 years by holy men and women such as Black Elk, who had a vision of the unity of all the races of the world, and Chief Leon Shenandoah, who spoke of the importance of living according to the ‘good mind’. Readers will no doubt have encountered Aboriginal elders and community leaders who exemplify this spirit in their personal example and selfless service to their communities – some who come to mind to me include Uncle Bob Randall, Jimmy Little, Archie Roach, ‘Mum Shirl’ Smith and Patrick Dodson. (As a side note, it is interesting to me that a number of these people combined traditional cultural knowledge with some form of Christian faith – perhaps the essence of these traditions are less incompatible than many Anglo-Australians might be inclined to think?)
Ancient spiritual knowledge and tools are a true blessing to us in this age as we seek to find our way ‘back to the garden’, and it is right that we honour with love and gratitude those who have preserved this wisdom through the centuries, and receive the wisdom that is given without stealing the culturally specific ceremonies of peoples who have been dispossessed enough by colonizing cultures. And we need to make sure that we use this knowledge in full consciousness, with compassion and respect for the autonomy of others, and apply it not only for ourselves but for our communities, ‘so the people may live’ as the Lakota prayer puts it. For it is only in offering the gifts of spiritual wisdom that we have given in service to our communities, as true shamans have always done, that we can transcend the egotistical individualism of our age and attain the ‘peace of God which passeth all understanding’ – the peace of a loving and upright heart.
Keppel Cassidy
Comments