Going to fast part 2 from El Collies Shared tranformations

[Guest guest]

The selective sociopolitical " war on drugs " has demonized the most

powerful of sacred plants, including the compassionate narcotic

species and the gateway psychedelics. Of all these, the potent sacred

herb tobacco has most retaliated, casting a curse on a world which

has used it irreverently. Because of this, it is the most currently

despised of all taboos, and will probably remain on the forbidden

list longer than any of the others.

 

I've stopped experimenting with contraband drugs twenty years ago,

but I still smoke tobacco. I'm not claiming that cigarettes are good

for anyone's health, but the sacred is not about physical fitness. A

great many seers, mystics and healers have been smokers, including

Helen Shucman (who channeled the original Course in Miracles books),

Elizabeth Kulber Ross, Stephen Levine, Jane Roberts, Edgar Casey,

Peter Hurkos... New Age teachers standing on the shoulders of these

luminaries often try to sanitize their memories. The visionary

astrologer Caroline Casey was amused to find that the portrait, which

hung in the foyer of the London Theosophical Society office of their

founder, Madame Blavatsky, had been airbrushed to remove the

perpetual cigarette from her hand.

 

A relevant aside: Richard Moss, an MD turned spiritual teacher,

suspects " that people who smoke are already fairly sensitive and

employ the cigarettes to ground themselves... " This observation is in

line with what I have noticed about myself and certain other smokers.

Whenever I tried to quit smoking, what bothered me more than the

withdrawal symptoms was the mental fog accompanied by a startling

increase in my psychic awareness (something not addressed in stop-

smoking clinics!).

 

Once, after three months without a cigarette, I was experiencing

outrageous telepathy, clairvoyance, and visitations from entities

from other realms. What was most unsettling was an immediate

materialization of any thought, which came to my mind. These were of

a different order than the absolutely lucid and deliberate

manifestations performed from the God/Self state. They were beyond my

ability to control and seemed to be coming from my unconscious, from

whence things have an unsettling knack of surfacing in their

hairiest, most uncensored form.

 

In a milder fashion, while I was out walking (which has always been a

form of " moving meditation " for me), if I thought of any individual I

knew, within minutes they would drive by or pop out of a store I was

passing. Perhaps these were not materializations of my thoughts at

all, but flashes of precognition. I never could tell which, and this

in itself disturbed me. I worried that I was going to start

manifesting scenarios from paranoia-hell, like the psycho/psychic kid

in the movie, " The Twilight Zone. " Thankfully, it never happened.

 

Much of my distress came from being so alone in my predicament. Had I

been able to find another soul who shared some of these uncanny

gifts, I may have been able to handle them with more aplomb. As it

was, I learned quickly that trying to talk to anyone about these

things provoked skepticism, fear or frustrating misunderstandings.

True to form, establishing consonant relationships was of far more

importance to me than being a species unto myself with weird powers.

 

For the record, the criteria for spiritual progress, is quite

different than generally imagined. One does not have to be a paragon

of virtue or perfection. I have heard from people who were alcoholics

when their Kundalini rose, and from many whose real or imagined

shortcomings pressed them to ask, " How can I be worthy of this? Why

me? " When the same question rose up from my depths, a voice of quiet

conviction answered simply: Because you were ready.

 

In every sense, the route I've taken is off the beaten path. My

shamanic education has been traditional in the sense that I didn't

choose it; it chose me. I didn't sign up for courses; I never

attended be-a-shaman workshops nor had myself apprenticed to native

Medicine women who abducted me for special transmissions. Until

recent years, I didn't even know that my bizarre proclivities were

following a pattern classically known as shamanic. Prior to the

flowering of cross-cultural lore in bookstores and seminars in the

seventies, no one I'd ever met knew what shamanism was. Even today, a

true shaman is off the map in most people's model of reality.

 

Shamanism as I practice it has nothing to do with Voodoo witchdoctor

Stephen King X-Files put-a-spell-on-you Hollywood special effects. It

isn't about channeling opinions from friendly Azor in hyperspace, nor

does it involve theatrical magick productions in which spirits come

forth like genies from the lamp to do one's bidding. In short, it is

neither evil nor fiction.

 

From an outsider's view, a shaman appears to be a wholly independent

agent whose behavior is unpredictable and peculiar. Prayer, rituals,

introspection, meditation, trance work, dreams and focused awareness

are tools of the trade. Feathers, masks, drums, rattles and other

exotic accessories are optional and are more associated with

indigenous customs than with basic shamanic procedure. Being a

minimalist, I make marginal use of such props.

 

In traditional shamanism, items like a pipe, drum, medicine objects

and such, have to be given in some way by the Spirit in order for

them to have sacred power. When these things are bought or improperly

acquired, they are without shamanic value. It isn't the specificity

of the objects so much as the energy they carry which renders them

medicine tools.

 

At the most elemental level, the shaman relates to the innate

consciousness in all things. As a small child, I talked to trees. I

would climb up 15-20 feet high in the pines around our house simply

to enjoy their companionship. I felt they were protecting me;

although I often climbed up where the branches were precariously thin

and brittle, I never fell. There is an analogy here: much of my life

has been spent, if not out on a limb, at altitudes where there hasn't

been much in the way of visible support.

 

My tree-climbing was a portent of unsuspected forces gathering for my

future rendezvous with the occult: " The climbing of trees in the

process of shamanic initiation can be found in Malaysia, Siberia, the

Americas, and Australia, " says noted medical anthropologist Joan

Halifax. Trees figure centrally in all shamanic traditions, being

sacred in their own right as well as having esoteric meanings (such

as the inner tree of life -- the central nervous system of the spine

and brain, which very much resemble a tree).

 

The Native American holy man, Bear Heart, tells of a traditional

initiation for children in which they are led blindfolded to sit by a

particular tree to get the feel of it: " Be with this tree, touch it,

hug it, lean against it, stand by it. Learn something from it. "

Later, the child would be able to find her way back to her particular

tree just by touching the tree, or by being intuitively drawn to

it. " That's how we began to connect, " says Bear Heart. " It's amazing

what you can feel from a tree. It can give us energy... That's why my

people have great respect for trees. The trees are our relatives --

we call them `tall standing brothers.' "

 

My personal bond with tall standing brothers continues to this day.

When I was having trouble recuperating from a knock down flu, a

friend who considered himself a metaphysician insisted I accompany

him on a trip to the woods to hug a tree because trees emit powerful

healing energies. I had no problem with his idea, but when we found a

secluded eucalyptus grove, I immediately felt wave after wave of fear

and pain from the tree I touched. My friend, who had also embraced a

nearby tree, was upset with me for " projecting my anxieties " and

insisted that trees only resonate peace and tranquillity.

 

I was perplexed too until, while coming home, we passed a work crew a

mile down the road which had begun sawing off branches and tree tops

in a pruning frenzy. " That, " I motioned to the carnage, " is what was

messing up my tree. "

 

I've always instinctively known that " All that exists lives, " as a

Chukchee shaman told an anthropologist. For me, rapport with other

life forms is less convoluted than communicating with humans. Mental

imagery and emotion are the universal telepathic language. Although

I'm seriously allergic to cats, in a lapse of reason, I'd allowed my

daughter to keep a kitten named Sherman. As Sherman reached

adolescence, he preferred spending most of his time outdoors, which

cut down on the allergy factor for me. Our neighbors who had cats

permitted to romp outside would stand on their porches in the

evenings calling " Here Kitty, Kitty, Kitty.… " I found it more

dignified (and easier on my vocal cords) to stand in our open doorway

for a few moments and silently announce, " Sherman, if you want to

come in for the night, here's your chance. " He always " heard " and

understood me perfectly. Within seconds, he would come streaking up

from wherever he'd been hanging out and dive into the house.

 

Once on a beach, I stood for a while watching some gulls as they

soared in huge looping figure eight's far in the distance. Awed by

their beauty, I asked them if they would come a bit closer so I could

see them better. To my delight, they flew immediately toward me,

graciously performing their aerial ballet in the sky directly

overhead.

 

I learned to make requests of the rain and the sun in a similar way.

Since for most of my adult life I had no car, on stormy days it was

hard to go grocery shopping in a downpour or carry sopping wet sacks

of soiled clothing five blocks to the Laundromat. I would state my

case to the rain, explaining that I needed to go out and buy food or

whatever, and ask if at all possible it might clear up just a short

while to let me get to the store. Generally, the rain stopped just

long enough for me to get to wherever I was going; it would usually

let up again when I was ready to return home.

 

I conversed with inanimate objects too. This was particularly useful

when an appliance malfunctioned, since I rarely had money to get

anything repaired. Once when my sewing machine broke down, I politely

asked it to help me out since I needed to mend some clothes. I got a

strong impression of jealousy coming from the machine, which at first

made no sense to me. Then I realized I'd been spending a great deal

of time writing with a new typewriter... and the sewing machine

apparently resented it! After I assured it that it was a truly fine

sewing machine, every bit as marvelous as the typewriter, it resumed

functioning perfectly.

 

Until I met Charles, I didn't know anyone else who communicated

with " objects. " But others are beginning to come out of the social

closet on this. The psychoneuroimmunologist Paul Pearsall has spoken

about his recovery from the usually fatal stage IV lymphoma. Among

other things he did to heal himself, during his radiation treatments,

his heart told him he could " somehow actually connect with and

influence the machine. " He was so successful with this that a

radiation technician remarked to him, " This is very, very strange,

but you seem to get a much more measurable effect with much less

dosage and time than most patients. What are you doing to our

machine? "

 

I realize that while my experiences in this realm are not considered

normal in terms of our cultural suppositions, they have actually been

quite ordinary. Anyone can speak to `objects' or animals in this way;

it doesn't require any special psychic skill. But it takes shamanic

instincts to honor the sentience and responsiveness of allegedly mute

beings in a world where only crazy people and little children are

permitted to believe in such things.

 

Much of my life has unfolded on a threshold between the mystical and

the common place. What has been extraordinary is not so much the

events themselves, but my ability to resist conditioning that

convinced everyone else around me that such things were impossible.

Through inexplicable grace, the creative, playful spirit at the core

of us all, fueled by wonder and love, remained aflame in me despite

the best efforts of the world to extinguish it.

 

As a child, I knew that communication with anything beyond our own

species was taboo and I mentioned it to no one, not even to other

children. It has always struck me ironic that humans imagined

themselves to be the only intelligent beings on the planet while

making life so much uglier and harder for themselves by treating

everything else as dead matter...

 

Shamanism is a lot more involved than this and is scary because the

realm of the Spirit is incomprehensible and tremendous in power and

intent. When one serves as vehicle for this power, one is thrust into

inconceivable situations by unimaginable forces, and sometimes they

play very rough. In recognition of the dangers of the path, the

Chukchee speak of shamans as " doomed to inspiration. " When you are

summoned to be a shaman, you are forced to relinquish conscious

control of your life. You don't write the script and you don't call

the shots. If you try, you get yourself into deep trouble fast.

 

Shamans learn to listen inwardly, to distinguish insight from ego,

spirit allies from hungry ghosts. As a shaman-in-training, you act on

faith, usually feel like a fool, get in your own way a lot, and to

your amazement, the Spirit still manages to make some good use of

you. It takes a great soul or a very long time to be a shaman with

grace.

 

As I've said, I'm taking liberties in defining myself as a shaman.

Yet even for a neophyte like me, there is no such thing as a

lightweight shamanic path. This is why I -- like anyone I have ever

heard give an authentic account of a shamanic life -- did my best to

resist the call. For other types of healers, artists and mystics, the

call may be gentle. They may be born with gifts that blossom over

time, or they have fortuitous encounters, which redirect them down

their destined path. For a shaman, the call is more often a banshee

scream, which leaves the callee -- and whoever else may be in the

vicinity -- with hair standing on end.

 

In a world of materialist-reality and militantly rational values,

heeding the call of the Spirit is sure to brand you a weirdo if not

worse. If you manage to escape the scornful notice of psychiatrists,

police, religious pontiffs, social-programmer educators, mortified

relatives, busybody neighbors and true but concerned friends, you

still have to do battle with the nether forces that take their role

in your development with fierce dedication. No shaman, no matter how

low on the totem pole, gets off without some close skirmishes with

illness, injury, insanity and death. The more potent the shaman, the

more harrowing the experiences.

 

Short of having the great fortune of being taken under wing by a

master shaman who can show you the ropes (and these are about as rare

as white buffalo), modern shamans are pretty much on their own. They

learn from the fires and voyages life pushes them into... or they

perish

[Guest guest]

Absolutely awesome.

Thanks for sharing.

I really connected with what she said.

I think I really needed to read that at this point,

I know she would be happy to know that

Bless -

James

 

, " chrism "

<> wrote:

>

> The selective sociopolitical " war on drugs " has demonized the most

> powerful of sacred plants, including the compassionate narcotic

> species and the gateway psychedelics. Of all these, the potent

sacred

> herb tobacco has most retaliated, casting a curse on a world which

> has used it irreverently. Because of this, it is the most

currently

> despised of all taboos, and will probably remain on the forbidden

> list longer than any of the others.

>

> I've stopped experimenting with contraband drugs twenty years ago,

> but I still smoke tobacco. I'm not claiming that cigarettes are

good

> for anyone's health, but the sacred is not about physical fitness.

A

> great many seers, mystics and healers have been smokers, including

> Helen Shucman (who channeled the original Course in Miracles

books),

> Elizabeth Kulber Ross, Stephen Levine, Jane Roberts, Edgar Casey,

> Peter Hurkos... New Age teachers standing on the shoulders of

these

> luminaries often try to sanitize their memories. The visionary

> astrologer Caroline Casey was amused to find that the portrait,

which

> hung in the foyer of the London Theosophical Society office of

their

> founder, Madame Blavatsky, had been airbrushed to remove the

> perpetual cigarette from her hand.

>

> A relevant aside: Richard Moss, an MD turned spiritual teacher,

> suspects " that people who smoke are already fairly sensitive and

> employ the cigarettes to ground themselves... " This observation is

in

> line with what I have noticed about myself and certain other

smokers.

> Whenever I tried to quit smoking, what bothered me more than the

> withdrawal symptoms was the mental fog accompanied by a startling

> increase in my psychic awareness (something not addressed in stop-

> smoking clinics!).

>

> Once, after three months without a cigarette, I was experiencing

> outrageous telepathy, clairvoyance, and visitations from entities

> from other realms. What was most unsettling was an immediate

> materialization of any thought, which came to my mind. These were

of

> a different order than the absolutely lucid and deliberate

> manifestations performed from the God/Self state. They were beyond

my

> ability to control and seemed to be coming from my unconscious,

from

> whence things have an unsettling knack of surfacing in their

> hairiest, most uncensored form.

>

> In a milder fashion, while I was out walking (which has always

been a

> form of " moving meditation " for me), if I thought of any

individual I

> knew, within minutes they would drive by or pop out of a store I

was

> passing. Perhaps these were not materializations of my thoughts at

> all, but flashes of precognition. I never could tell which, and

this

> in itself disturbed me. I worried that I was going to start

> manifesting scenarios from paranoia-hell, like the psycho/psychic

kid

> in the movie, " The Twilight Zone. " Thankfully, it never happened.

>

> Much of my distress came from being so alone in my predicament.

Had I

> been able to find another soul who shared some of these uncanny

> gifts, I may have been able to handle them with more aplomb. As it

> was, I learned quickly that trying to talk to anyone about these

> things provoked skepticism, fear or frustrating misunderstandings.

> True to form, establishing consonant relationships was of far more

> importance to me than being a species unto myself with weird

powers.

>

> For the record, the criteria for spiritual progress, is quite

> different than generally imagined. One does not have to be a

paragon

> of virtue or perfection. I have heard from people who were

alcoholics

> when their Kundalini rose, and from many whose real or imagined

> shortcomings pressed them to ask, " How can I be worthy of this?

Why

> me? " When the same question rose up from my depths, a voice of

quiet

> conviction answered simply: Because you were ready.

>

> In every sense, the route I've taken is off the beaten path. My

> shamanic education has been traditional in the sense that I didn't

> choose it; it chose me. I didn't sign up for courses; I never

> attended be-a-shaman workshops nor had myself apprenticed to

native

> Medicine women who abducted me for special transmissions. Until

> recent years, I didn't even know that my bizarre proclivities were

> following a pattern classically known as shamanic. Prior to the

> flowering of cross-cultural lore in bookstores and seminars in the

> seventies, no one I'd ever met knew what shamanism was. Even

today, a

> true shaman is off the map in most people's model of reality.

>

> Shamanism as I practice it has nothing to do with Voodoo

witchdoctor

> Stephen King X-Files put-a-spell-on-you Hollywood special effects.

It

> isn't about channeling opinions from friendly Azor in hyperspace,

nor

> does it involve theatrical magick productions in which spirits

come

> forth like genies from the lamp to do one's bidding. In short, it

is

> neither evil nor fiction.

>

> From an outsider's view, a shaman appears to be a wholly

independent

> agent whose behavior is unpredictable and peculiar. Prayer,

rituals,

> introspection, meditation, trance work, dreams and focused

awareness

> are tools of the trade. Feathers, masks, drums, rattles and other

> exotic accessories are optional and are more associated with

> indigenous customs than with basic shamanic procedure. Being a

> minimalist, I make marginal use of such props.

>

> In traditional shamanism, items like a pipe, drum, medicine

objects

> and such, have to be given in some way by the Spirit in order for

> them to have sacred power. When these things are bought or

improperly

> acquired, they are without shamanic value. It isn't the

specificity

> of the objects so much as the energy they carry which renders them

> medicine tools.

>

> At the most elemental level, the shaman relates to the innate

> consciousness in all things. As a small child, I talked to trees.

I

> would climb up 15-20 feet high in the pines around our house

simply

> to enjoy their companionship. I felt they were protecting me;

> although I often climbed up where the branches were precariously

thin

> and brittle, I never fell. There is an analogy here: much of my

life

> has been spent, if not out on a limb, at altitudes where there

hasn't

> been much in the way of visible support.

>

> My tree-climbing was a portent of unsuspected forces gathering for

my

> future rendezvous with the occult: " The climbing of trees in the

> process of shamanic initiation can be found in Malaysia, Siberia,

the

> Americas, and Australia, " says noted medical anthropologist Joan

> Halifax. Trees figure centrally in all shamanic traditions, being

> sacred in their own right as well as having esoteric meanings

(such

> as the inner tree of life -- the central nervous system of the

spine

> and brain, which very much resemble a tree).

>

> The Native American holy man, Bear Heart, tells of a traditional

> initiation for children in which they are led blindfolded to sit

by a

> particular tree to get the feel of it: " Be with this tree, touch

it,

> hug it, lean against it, stand by it. Learn something from it. "

> Later, the child would be able to find her way back to her

particular

> tree just by touching the tree, or by being intuitively drawn to

> it. " That's how we began to connect, " says Bear Heart. " It's

amazing

> what you can feel from a tree. It can give us energy... That's why

my

> people have great respect for trees. The trees are our relatives --

 

> we call them `tall standing brothers.' "

>

> My personal bond with tall standing brothers continues to this

day.

> When I was having trouble recuperating from a knock down flu, a

> friend who considered himself a metaphysician insisted I accompany

> him on a trip to the woods to hug a tree because trees emit

powerful

> healing energies. I had no problem with his idea, but when we

found a

> secluded eucalyptus grove, I immediately felt wave after wave of

fear

> and pain from the tree I touched. My friend, who had also embraced

a

> nearby tree, was upset with me for " projecting my anxieties " and

> insisted that trees only resonate peace and tranquillity.

>

> I was perplexed too until, while coming home, we passed a work

crew a

> mile down the road which had begun sawing off branches and tree

tops

> in a pruning frenzy. " That, " I motioned to the carnage, " is what

was

> messing up my tree. "

>

> I've always instinctively known that " All that exists lives, " as a

> Chukchee shaman told an anthropologist. For me, rapport with other

> life forms is less convoluted than communicating with humans.

Mental

> imagery and emotion are the universal telepathic language.

Although

> I'm seriously allergic to cats, in a lapse of reason, I'd allowed

my

> daughter to keep a kitten named Sherman. As Sherman reached

> adolescence, he preferred spending most of his time outdoors,

which

> cut down on the allergy factor for me. Our neighbors who had cats

> permitted to romp outside would stand on their porches in the

> evenings calling " Here Kitty, Kitty, Kitty.… " I found it more

> dignified (and easier on my vocal cords) to stand in our open

doorway

> for a few moments and silently announce, " Sherman, if you want to

> come in for the night, here's your chance. " He always " heard " and

> understood me perfectly. Within seconds, he would come streaking

up

> from wherever he'd been hanging out and dive into the house.

>

> Once on a beach, I stood for a while watching some gulls as they

> soared in huge looping figure eight's far in the distance. Awed by

> their beauty, I asked them if they would come a bit closer so I

could

> see them better. To my delight, they flew immediately toward me,

> graciously performing their aerial ballet in the sky directly

> overhead.

>

> I learned to make requests of the rain and the sun in a similar

way.

> Since for most of my adult life I had no car, on stormy days it

was

> hard to go grocery shopping in a downpour or carry sopping wet

sacks

> of soiled clothing five blocks to the Laundromat. I would state my

> case to the rain, explaining that I needed to go out and buy food

or

> whatever, and ask if at all possible it might clear up just a

short

> while to let me get to the store. Generally, the rain stopped just

> long enough for me to get to wherever I was going; it would

usually

> let up again when I was ready to return home.

>

> I conversed with inanimate objects too. This was particularly

useful

> when an appliance malfunctioned, since I rarely had money to get

> anything repaired. Once when my sewing machine broke down, I

politely

> asked it to help me out since I needed to mend some clothes. I got

a

> strong impression of jealousy coming from the machine, which at

first

> made no sense to me. Then I realized I'd been spending a great

deal

> of time writing with a new typewriter... and the sewing machine

> apparently resented it! After I assured it that it was a truly

fine

> sewing machine, every bit as marvelous as the typewriter, it

resumed

> functioning perfectly.

>

> Until I met Charles, I didn't know anyone else who communicated

> with " objects. " But others are beginning to come out of the social

> closet on this. The psychoneuroimmunologist Paul Pearsall has

spoken

> about his recovery from the usually fatal stage IV lymphoma. Among

> other things he did to heal himself, during his radiation

treatments,

> his heart told him he could " somehow actually connect with and

> influence the machine. " He was so successful with this that a

> radiation technician remarked to him, " This is very, very strange,

> but you seem to get a much more measurable effect with much less

> dosage and time than most patients. What are you doing to our

> machine? "

>

> I realize that while my experiences in this realm are not

considered

> normal in terms of our cultural suppositions, they have actually

been

> quite ordinary. Anyone can speak to `objects' or animals in this

way;

> it doesn't require any special psychic skill. But it takes

shamanic

> instincts to honor the sentience and responsiveness of allegedly

mute

> beings in a world where only crazy people and little children are

> permitted to believe in such things.

>

> Much of my life has unfolded on a threshold between the mystical

and

> the common place. What has been extraordinary is not so much the

> events themselves, but my ability to resist conditioning that

> convinced everyone else around me that such things were

impossible.

> Through inexplicable grace, the creative, playful spirit at the

core

> of us all, fueled by wonder and love, remained aflame in me

despite

> the best efforts of the world to extinguish it.

>

> As a child, I knew that communication with anything beyond our own

> species was taboo and I mentioned it to no one, not even to other

> children. It has always struck me ironic that humans imagined

> themselves to be the only intelligent beings on the planet while

> making life so much uglier and harder for themselves by treating

> everything else as dead matter...

>

> Shamanism is a lot more involved than this and is scary because

the

> realm of the Spirit is incomprehensible and tremendous in power

and

> intent. When one serves as vehicle for this power, one is thrust

into

> inconceivable situations by unimaginable forces, and sometimes

they

> play very rough. In recognition of the dangers of the path, the

> Chukchee speak of shamans as " doomed to inspiration. " When you are

> summoned to be a shaman, you are forced to relinquish conscious

> control of your life. You don't write the script and you don't

call

> the shots. If you try, you get yourself into deep trouble fast.

>

> Shamans learn to listen inwardly, to distinguish insight from ego,

> spirit allies from hungry ghosts. As a shaman-in-training, you act

on

> faith, usually feel like a fool, get in your own way a lot, and to

> your amazement, the Spirit still manages to make some good use of

> you. It takes a great soul or a very long time to be a shaman with

> grace.

>

> As I've said, I'm taking liberties in defining myself as a shaman.

> Yet even for a neophyte like me, there is no such thing as a

> lightweight shamanic path. This is why I -- like anyone I have

ever

> heard give an authentic account of a shamanic life -- did my best

to

> resist the call. For other types of healers, artists and mystics,

the

> call may be gentle. They may be born with gifts that blossom over

> time, or they have fortuitous encounters, which redirect them down

> their destined path. For a shaman, the call is more often a

banshee

> scream, which leaves the callee -- and whoever else may be in the

> vicinity -- with hair standing on end.

>

> In a world of materialist-reality and militantly rational values,

> heeding the call of the Spirit is sure to brand you a weirdo if

not

> worse. If you manage to escape the scornful notice of

psychiatrists,

> police, religious pontiffs, social-programmer educators, mortified

> relatives, busybody neighbors and true but concerned friends, you

> still have to do battle with the nether forces that take their

role

> in your development with fierce dedication. No shaman, no matter

how

> low on the totem pole, gets off without some close skirmishes with

> illness, injury, insanity and death. The more potent the shaman,

the

> more harrowing the experiences.

>

> Short of having the great fortune of being taken under wing by a

> master shaman who can show you the ropes (and these are about as

rare

> as white buffalo), modern shamans are pretty much on their own.

They

> learn from the fires and voyages life pushes them into... or they

> perish

>