composed in mid-april 1996. Many of the resources cited, links made within this site will certainly be moved and/or changed in the months to come.
Justin Hall
22 april, 1996
Shamanism, Grant
I only think of myself as a shaman in light of the letters I recieve recounting healing. compared to jungle buried drug mixing septum pierced dark skins, it seems almost trite for me to seize that label, but
media shamanism my mom doesn't log on to my pages much, she read about ireland, she said "I felt like I was there"
extend that to an alcoholic distant father dead, and the resonance of moment placement is higher, perhaps. those pain ridden recesses, we need a metaphor, something both memetically similar to our own experience, and yet just different enough to allow healing distance perspective.
by posting my father death recount deal-with, people heal themselves through story. it's not just mine, thought, I've found other folks setting up shrines to their passed away father's online. so it is worship, in a way, but embodiement, capturing father's essence for mourning children, with driver's liscences, photographs in the true sense of buddhism, my suffering is your suffering, other folks feel it too - flattery, almost, justification from a more depricated place - wow, someone has the time to read about my dad, pain, life, etc. so the web offers us the chance to create our soap operas more personal and hence poignant. In this framework, if folks heal through media propigated stories, are we shaman?
re present a shaman literally re presents? at least a writer does. by characterizing, explaining, recapitulating experiences, persons, spirits, the shaman transmits, offers power to the listener.
black elk, potent dreams finally shared with his tribe were moments of community celebration and powermanifesting - possession is one thing, storytelling another, means to share spirit.
their power - both the shaman and the spirits - the representing act, making understandable somehow transmits power of understanding, self and other, right, I understand something similar and hence my self-standing is bolstered.
like levi-strauss empowering legions of sociologists to conquer their fear of the other, and fear of broad diverse society with sweeping bilogical generalizations.
he made difference seem simple, graspable. the natural progression of enough levi-strauss is studying the jivar.
people priviledge face to face contact - the drama of a dance trace ritual versus reading about it.
f2f of course the physical performance crowns tangibility. what you get from the book is not the experience, but the idea.
so there is a moral choice in shamanic writing -
to make accessable, doable everything within some magic of course suspended
this is a power choice unresolved -is someone a shaman if they profess their magic means? as long as they don't compromise the magic experience based on illusion?
I propose
bridging the gap
to bridge the media gap, people have to perform themselves -
the first stage is idea seed through distance media, and then to catharcize themselves through counter-sharing.or at least ritual reenactment of the original manifestation. seizing power through their own power potential so we have the celestine prophecy, followed up by workbooks for life integration, tapes, seminars to confirm energy realization moments.
of course the qunitessential celestine experience is travelling to peru, otherwise passive reciprocy of james redfeild - only so much healing. so we have seminars in that light, computers democritize media shamanism.
endless counterseeding ideas. black elk his power vision dream transmitted in dance and recounted verbal
finally written for western white edification. no doubt that, people responded to his spirit narrative - .
the new age, seizing hold of the representations presented so long in western media and seeking life enactment integration.
offering the sense of the excitement lost in non magical predominated society
but the book medium only somewhat usefulnecessitizes seminars, tapes, connection beyond text multimedia connection empowered by truth, new age authors aspire to help more than one person busy helping the entire continent. if the shamanic function is largely representation, then media itself is western shamanic exercise.
or tantilization - advertising.
what is a sitcom - by watching other people's lives we might have more control sense of power over our own.medium questions raise dialogical issues. what might be flawed about tv, in a shamanic sense, is that the patient has no means of contribution, no specific story. Television presumes projection, from the most on high collective. It creates a problem that it can medicate.
was the famous pregnant woman a stry shaping participant? as a medium, tv is limited because the stories lack the person veracity. the course of production so repressive; it's unlikely someone is speaking to you, cares what you have to say.
cable TV, and moreover the internet reflect technological means of providing targeted representations.
the computer itself, as your slave/secretary embodies a spirit helper.
I first started publishing on the net cuz it seemed easy, like there were folks who were doing it, and not doing too much with it. no one was really putting themsevlves out there.
I grew into my current level of internet assimilation gradually,
now I stand at a point where I at least expose my thoughts and experiences online
when I am injured, I put my scars and doctors online - you can look at my dog bite, my appendix removal. I put pictures of my naked body online as well
my voice is up there, my handwriting.
for a long time I refrained from posting my signature, because there is checks but once I put just my first name up, it gave an especia intimacy precisely because of that contact value. so I am creating myself online. where do I fudge the truth? to protect the innocent, or the guilty who chose to remain anonymous
I've striven for honesty. by cutting to the bone of my experiences, I find my truth with real names and faces intact. thus started, I am so bound - can't really use a picture of somebody with another anem,, or use some fictional characters and some not, although that's an enticing prospect. huh. maybe...
regardless, if I used fiction, I'd still.
I am reminded of misery, by stephen king, where a popular author is kidnapped and forced to save one of his heroines after he kills her off in a recent book. he defends himself saying that he had feelings for her too, but that it was time for her to die. like life cycles! but the bottom line is that we become attacted to anything, we can promote give life to anything.for cuna, that life force embodiement in described as spirits - weven the noise has soul.
so even if you speak of/for spirits not present, you are still packaging something for people to absorb.
it's the compromise of packaging. greatsest prospect, greatest disaster.
- thinking of plastic, some say our greatest invention, totally versitile. um,
if we use montage to approach reality, a multitude of media - "a riot of marginalia" (paeg 230)
I get that sense when I add another medium to a web page about a person. For example, there's my pager about megan. With only a bit of text.
Then there's my page about Yoni, you can see his smiling visage. The picture is already dated - his hair's shorter.
actually hair poses the most immediate challenge to timelessness. People's hair styles change so regularly that pages are dated in months. I have been doing this long enough that I have photgraphic hairstyle histories now.
some folks I've caricatured, there's not doubt that's my rendering.
then there's voice. If you look over my page about my granparents, you can listen to my grandpa.
they are not yet dead, but they have proovided the most background material. pictures periodic, their car, and an attempt to capture my grandfather's voicing his pmortality.
that's not a re cording, in some ways more true because of no such claims.
but you can listen to the at voice and know whassup with g-pa, the way he spoke is so much a part of him.
given the choice between photos and sounds? sounds in a way have an advantage important - photos are eye rendered and so seem necessary litterally to visual character formation. but voice mail, it's almost more betraying. it breaks the boundaries in a way that other media do not - because voices are about interaction. when you hear someone speak, and it's not intended for broadcast.
like fingerprints - the contact was made page 220
intention
why do people take pictures? for themsevles? on some level to assure the presence of the photographer (see m&a)
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