"You've Got the Touch" (Insert eighties keyboard riff) "You've Got the Power"

Thoughts on Cave Art (My Baby's a Caveman?)

"... a magic image embodies the subject rather than represents it. A magic image need not, perhaps cannot, represent an object that has its being in the spirit world, but it can affect the onlookers conciousness, prompting them to see in it the vision of the object."

Often, when we study prehistoric man and history, in general, we laugh condescendingly at their lack of advancement. However, each human being in thier time made huge advancements and contributions that were built upon by future human beings. What I find most fascinating about this quote and the passage that contains it, is its parallels to early childhood.

It is as if every child, from birth until death, represents the history of man at rapid speed. One can compare the cave drawings and rituals mentioned in the text to a two or three year old, and find that children find magic in animals just as cave dwellers did. Children draw animals (sometimes on walls) and pretend to be them up until their parents say, "Enough, already! Why don't you learn to read, kid?"

Shamans

This portion of Hughes' book brings back weird childhood memories of my father that I thought had vanished. I do not say this negatively, but as I recall my early upbringing, many of the events my father would drag us to, and a lot of his lifestyle reflected that of shamanism. Now, I was young and ignorant and would pull yoga books off the shelf and search the pages for pictures of someone in the book stuffing yarn up his nose and pulling it through his mouth. I would then find my dad and ask him, while laughing uncontrollably, if he could do such things. He used to insist that I join him in sleeping under the stars. These camp outs ended after one summer when I got up sleepily from the lawn and peed all over his sleeping bag. He yelled, and I ran back into the house. Most children interrupt their fathers when stepping in front of a televised football game. I interrupted my father by stepping in front of nature.

Okay, okay! Enough with the Thurber-esque memories.

Now, I'm writing on a subject I feel I have no experience in which to speak, but I will bring up some points of interest. In order to be a shaman, one must have at one point faced a near death experience in early childhood or young adulthood. Their skeletons face dismemberment and reduction while they lie motionless. Meanwhile, they travel to the underworld and meet spirits. I would also be curious to know what sort of daimon I have.


I agree with a previous post (I forget who wrote it) about mentioning certain musicians as being shaman's. Perhaps they can be interpretted in such a way, but... and I'm a fan of many of the artists mentioned, but... how I can I say this... let's not contribute to their already pretentious personalities by giving them more other worldly traits. For instance, Bob Dylan's motorcycle accident was a traumatic experience for him, mainly, because he couldn't play an instrument. Certainly, he went through a Christian phase at one point in his career, but shamanism? Maybe someone in class can explain Hughes' logic behind this one.

Maybe the circus at one point may have been shamanistic, but today, I'm not so sure. The last time I went, I was apalled by the way the animals were treated, and how yellow the clowns's teeth were when their white makeup was applied. I learned this term called anthropomorphism which means "to give human like characteristics to animals." This style of thinking is rejected by the scientific community.

Walsh's book begins to delve into this topic, stating that "its be demonized by clergy, diagnosed by psychiatrists, and dismissed by academics."

I'm going to reference what I said earlier about my not knowing much on the topic because I have very little experience in it. Walsh mentions a number of anthropologists and psychologists, who stopped observing shamanism from a safe distance, and began practicing it themselves. I'm not sure there can be any better way of learning such a practice.