INTRODUCTION:

“Shamans are people with the strength to become vulnerable, the will to impose form and the wit to translate their treasure into an understandable dream”.¹The Shamans are empowered by their will to impose and translate their treasure into an understandable dream.

The idea of the alternate, extended and superior reality preserved by the Shaman will refute Max Weber’s (1864-1920) idea on rationalism that the modern world marches at the cost of enchanting aspects of human existence and would attempt to establish the notionof re-enchantment.

Ideas on rationalism are an inevitable aspect of human existence and conduct. But underlying them are the non-rational aspects of human existence pointing towards a greater reality which cannot be ignored. One of the ways to activate the depths of alternate reality present in every individual like the activation of rationality is through the altered state of consciousness. It is this altered state of consciousness which the Shamans identify to connect to the superior reality. The paper seeks to highlight the fact that just as rational thoughts cannot be disassociated with the modern world, enchanting and magical influences to form an inevitable part of its domain. The enchanting influences are present in every individual in the form of wishes, desires and dreams. It is this reality evident in the Shamans, which is universal and can be perceived by all transcending the barriers of culture and country. “The psychology of perception teaches us that in the process of perception, we always make choices. In other words, we perceive that which is meaningful in some way to us, whether emotionally, creatively, or cognitively. We cannot access what we have not perceived. An analysis, therefore, can only be about what has meaning for us as researchers and spectators”.²The present study would explore the presence of such innate tendencies in the form of wishes and desires in response to the world of enchantment and wonder. Thus, the paper would endeavour to preserve the supernatural as an insight into the natural or vice versa. While the process of rationalisation is visible and evident, the sources of enchanting influences have been found not to be disappearing but they are certainly fleeting away from the modern man’s grip. Perhaps the modern world has a tendency to subjugate and ignore the enchanting aspects since it has lost its visibility in the midst of the most evident and rational thought processes. The point is not to develop a counter-narrative against the power of logic and reason but to identify how the invisible reality is an extension of the visible truth. This article attempts to develop links between modern conditions and elements of the past represented by logic and magic. This paper chooses, for a closer and critical analysis of the Shamans in order to juxtapose the realities visible and seemingly invisible yet a dominant truth which finds expression in the fictitious and the real. A Shaman exerts its influence due to the presence of the innate tendencies in man to willingly advance towards the supernatural. In the case of the Nepali shamans, the observation is more precise as one observes a real version of the altered consciousness.

With the experimental approach of physically observing the Shamans in a state of ecstasy, one could assess one’s inner states moving between the objective and subjective realms of understanding. To derive one’s own understanding from an indigenous cultural practice of the east and west would be objective and subjective at the same time. This could be achieved through an exchange of subjective positions, represented by the Shamans. In other words, this paper would gradually unearth the maturing of the initial conceptions of Shamanistic understanding through the exchange of Nepali subjectivity embodied in certain cultural symbols. This would be assessed through the lenses of objectivity welcoming general as well as individual views. To exemplify it further we can refer to V.M. Mikhailovski as he proposes that a Shaman is “an intermediary in mans relation with the world of spirits”.³ The Shamans would enter into altered state of consciousness interpreted as spirit or soul journey where Eliade (1964) uses the term “magical flight” to connote an altered state of consciousness interpreted as “soul journey”⁴. Such ideas on Shamans and Shamanism could enable one to transcend the periphery of objective truths creating an assessment of one’s inner states by providing a platform, a base to probe within.

In the Shamans, one could find the integration of thematic blocks which embodies units of universal meaning. The practices of Shamanism requires a great deal of sensitivity to communicate and translate the invisible realm of inner vision into an understandable dream. Life revolves around a sense of mystery which Shamans allude to. To quote Emily Dickinson, “The world is not conclusion/A sequel stands beyond. /Invisible, like music, /But positive as sound”.⁵The Shamans like the poets pursue the invisible world of inner vision by taking refuge to his own skill of transforming the invisible alternate reality into a convincing one. “He still remained indeed baffled before the mystery of life and death; but he had gained vigour to cope with fate; he could accept all things not understood”.⁶The Shamans resemble apsychiatrist in trying to create a self-fulfilling prophecy or alluding to a culturally and psychological meaningful experience for their patients in a culturally embedded setting. “For example, a psychiatrist who believes that a patient will have a psychotic experience may easily set up a self-fulfilling prophecy”.⁷

Defaming Shamans as Comic Tricksters:

The Shamans are commonly condemned as tricksters for having instilled the seeds of ambition, desire in their patients by their prophecies, which satiated their thirst of becoming what they lack. An important aspect of the paper is the way it highlights the Shamans, who lure and entice by shaping reality. We would like to contradict here on the line that undoubtedly they allude to the unknown reality and make it appear convincing. But they are not liars or tricksters since what they profess can be a key to realise a greater reality. They can be sensed as bridging and integrating fragmented elements in mind body and spirit. One of the ways to achieve this integration is to make the patient and public retaliate and collaborate in quest of understanding the abstract, extended truth.

The patients like Macbeth of William Shakespeare falls under such demonic possession represented by the witches and the Shamans. “Their spells have already wrought upon his blood”.⁶

The Shamans represent an agreeable picture of the cosmic forces that protract the universe. It, therefore, justifies the claim “imagination is not a state, it is human existence”.⁸

It is indeed a difficult task as perceiving the world through a Shamanistic perspective that challenges western sensory and ideological conventions. But such alternate and extended truth may gain momentum by considering it queer as such truths “acquires meaning from its oppositional relation to the norm”.⁹The reality of the mysterious alternate truth embodied in the Shamans appear to be strangely mysterious to the normal and dominant ideas. Therefore, it is considered a marginalised way of knowing. The queer theory would perhaps enlighten this marginalised way of knowing by renouncing the claims of many of what appears queer is at odds with the dominant truth but not the truth. Besides, the theory of uncanny also justifies their presence in the very being of human existence.

Reliance of Shamanism on Primitive Beliefs:

Freud argues that we experience a sense of uncanny when repressed childhood conflicts are brought back and the primitive beliefs receive a renewal. “New experiences have meaning within a larger context: they connect to an already existing structure of experience. The meanings that spectators give to performances are interwoven with the spectators’ biographical, social, and culturally conditioned life experiences, all of which are important preconditions for the possibility of experiencing a performance”.²The presence of the uncanny in the Shamans restores and renews primitive knowledge of supernaturalism preserved in the realms of the unseen and unconscious strata of understanding. The Shamans however take refuge in their belief clothed with the alternate truth as if to vent their repressed knowledge of the Shamanistic culture. The uncanny would foster the claim of Renaissance by illuminating the darkness of being partially familiar to familiar letting out an overflow of repression or forbidden and forlorn knowledge contrary to the eyes of legitimate truths. It would lead to the resurrection of new ideas, which is suppressed and subdued in the hidden corners of the consciousness. It can be achieved through spirit possession, which is uncanny in effect, yet enlightening in terms of confronting the supernatural, a truth marginalised and opposed to legitimate understanding. Shamanistic learning is transcendental as it alludes to a submerged yet enchanting reality rarely accepted by worshippers of legitimate and rational truth.

Undoubtedly, it is this urge to chase an uncanny yet mysterious superior reality which could influence one to release oneself from the suffocation of being strangulated by the conscience of what is odd, queer, uncanny, mysterious irrational yet their long cherished heritage. One would not forsake what is one’s precious possession only because, “the origins of concern with going native is the fear of going against rational Science in favour of a primitive myth and in religious terms turning away from God to Superstition”.⁹The reality may appear abstract and metaphysical yet it can be perceived through a superior understanding.

Shamanism Doesn’t Eclipse but Elevates Understanding:

Moving on to the claims of Jung who states “The call to Shamanism may be received with considerable ambivalence, and those who receive it may be regarded as “doomed to inspiration’’¹⁰To contradict the idea of doomed inspiration we can say that the extended truths embodied in the Shamans would perhaps elevate our understanding and not eclipse it. One of the queer characteristics of the Shamans is their awareness of realities other than those of three-dimensional space and linear time is known to our common waking consciousness. It is as if the witches and the Shamans are special beings meditating reality with closed eyes, empowered with the magic of perceiving things hidden from others. The other world accessible to the Shamans in the Shamanic State of Consciousness is regarded as the alternate reality where, “the shamans purpose in journeying to it in the SSC [shamanic state of consciousness] is to interact consciously with certain guardian power or spirits there, which are usually perceived as power animals”.¹For the Shamans the guardian spirit is “Bir Masan”. Prem Sharma, a Shaman personally interviewed by us in 2017, exclaimed in Nepali “masan chalaira khet ropai garthyo daura bokauthyoh ara” meaning the “Bir Masan or guardian spirit if pleased could even plough the fields and carry woods. A Shaman is guided by a unique way of perceiving the metaphysical reality and placing it before us. The reality is perhaps present in the form of shared universal reality, which finds expression in Carl Jung’s (1857-1961) notion of collective consciousness. Shamanism refers to the structures of the unconscious mind in the form of archetypal images and symbols. Richard Noll (1959), clinical psychologist and historian of medicine quotes Jung’s remark about his own guardian spirit, which may personify the collective consciousness to which the shamans alluded to as an omnipresent guide who provided crucial insights into the unknown. “There are things in the psyche which I do not produce, but which produce themselves and have their own life, and there is something in me which can say things that I do not know and do not intend”.¹Probably it is the impact of the collective consciousness which has taken shape of a guardian spirit, thereby asserting its inevitability in the form of an “anthropological constant” true to all cultures”.¹¹

An Amalgam of Abstractions in the Form of Thematic Blocks

Moving on to the discussions about the abstractions underlying the thematic blocks in perceiving the alternate truth crucial to the Shamans one could integrate these thematic blocks or abstractions in the working of the cultural expressions underlying their cult. The different realities revolving around such blocks are translated into an understandable and convincing reality by understanding how the different cultural expressions connect. The Nepalese people believe in the juxtaposition of hunting, fishing and religion existing in the form of cultural symbols. The nets they use for fishing are also used as a protection from the attacks of venomousness spirit. Shamanistic learning alludes to certain cultural symbols preserved subconsciously in the primeval psyche. The patient of the Shaman feels at home to those culturally embedded connotations used by the Shamans to overpower their (patients) wavering sensibilities. This indicates “...theory and practice in ethnography are in an eternal dialectical movement”.¹²The cultural belief systems have been woven in an eternal and logical way to establish relations in society between culturally isolated spheres like religion, language and topographical features. The Shamans have already entered into a dialectical relation handed down to them by their ancestors. What is common to both is the garb of the unconscious psyche woven through the primeval past.

The Metaphorical Expressions and Voicing the Unknown:

The Shamans fit into the role of a poet in their pursuit of giving a concrete shape to their sublime vision of a transcendental yet eternal truth. As Theseus says in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer-Night’s Dream (1600), The poet’s eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,/ Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;/ And, as imagination bodies forth/ The forms of things unknown, the poets pen/ Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing / A local habitation and a name.¹³

To substantiate when the Shaman chants, “Om Guru ki Shakti, meri bhakti, shaumaro, shindi mara” meaning I am invoking the power of the divine Guru to help me destroy the evil forces, one could feel the power of the Guru descending from the other world and responding to the call of the Shaman. The Shaman transforms into a poet with his metaphorical expression of conjuring divine grace. These exhortations were made by Mangal Singh Limboo, a practising Shaman residing at Lower Bhaluthang, West Sikkim, India.

Mangal Singh unconsciously fulfils his urge of moulding the unknown into shapes of convincing realism. The Shamans make use of philosophical and metaphorical diction in order to shape their allusion of the unknown and occult into figments of factual reality. On being asked about the strength of his language, Shaman Mangal Singh Limboo replies with wonder, “Deuta chara pachi hami kamnu thalcha ani atbhoot bhasha ma bolnu thalcha” meaning “We can speak in a typical language on being possessed, God rides on our back and we tremble and speak in a manner which may not be lucid and clear.” The receivers could connect to the incongruity in their speech as, “One of the ways that tribal societies maintain the sacramental nature of their psychoactive plants is to use them in ritualised settings where embedded meanings are shared by the community at large.”⁷

It is easy for the Nepali Shamans to measure the thoughts of the people and convince their patients for they have grown amidst such cultural expressions powered by an unflinching faith in the power of their belief. The Nepalese consider the Shamans not only a means to cure their sickness but a way to retain their spiritual connection through a higher consciousness.

A more embracing approach would be appropriate to explore the endeavours of the Shamans, “If one accepts that the shamans are neither deviant nor deranged, insane but rather are valuable members of their communities who have abilities in a number of domains (including healing) then one becomes more open to learning from their perceptions of illness”.⁷The Nepali Shamans juxtaposes their individual psychologies with the collective unconsciousness of the people. This was termed as individualisation by Jung, a process of recovering psychic balance by recognising a sense of unique individuality and a relation with the greater experience of human existence.

Taking into consideration an excerpt of a long conversation held at the University of Texas in 1986 between Ahmad Alasti, a Persian scholar and Michael Oppitz, the director of the film Shamans of the Blind Country (1981), Oppitz coined the term ‘thematic blocks’. But it is intriguing to find how the Shamans make use of such thematic blocks in the form of myths by orienting them in their speech and expressions. As already stated Shamanistic expressions are imbued with metaphorical reality in the form of mythical allusions preserved in the primeval psyche. The words of a Nepali Limboo Shaman, Mangal Singh Limboo from West Sikkim, India in 2017 makes this argument even more justifiable. His entire speech on Shamanism appears like an enchanting adventure where one felt that one was overpowered by the web of realism, which he was trying to weave. One seemed to be under the spell of his expressions as one thought his opinion on conjuring nature for strength may appear to be a myth a make believes but it couldn’t be unreal. This may be because of one’s strong roots in the Hindu religion, where nature is considered holy and divine. Continuing the discussion on Hinduism we would like to probe into the philosophy of Freud and Jung. According to Freud and Jung, the greater portion of the mind is submerged unknown to everyone. The Hindus seem to acknowledge the claim when the Hindu psychologists call these hidden mental forces samskara. A mind engulfed in Hinduvta may serve as a potent factor in determining ones conscious tendency of connecting with shamanistic understanding and overcoming fragmented consciousness. As the Shaman chants words, “Aago jagaunu, aagomarnu” conjuring fire for strength, one could sense the heat of fire an invincible energy worshipped by Hindus as “Agni Devta”. Perhaps, the heat was not of fire but of reverence to a culture which the believers were emotionally affiliated to. A modern individual can cultivate the Shaman within through their own mythic constructions of reality. This can be achieved by integrating mythology with current trends of psychology. Halifax (1942) considers Shamanism as an earth philosophy which focuses on instinctual energies. The energies relate to the myths deposited in memory, a reality that one has never seen.

Shamanism a Primitive Human Science:

Today we find it important to see shamanism as a human science in order to voice the relevance and authenticity of their practices, which is on the verge of dying. Shamanism does not have a specific doctrine. The Shamanistic culture is a medium to reach the other realities beyond the apparent reality. The prophecies of the Shamans are clothed with the mystery of creative ambiguity as they say, “satyabolnuparcha, Parmeshwar; sanchobolnuparcha, he Parmeshwari”!¹⁴In other words, utter only truth, only truth. The Shaman in these lines exhorts the God or Goddess to tell the truth and admonishes the divine providence to be true in their expressions.

Dowson shows how the beliefs of the Shamans are used “as a political resource to exercise their power and control the behaviour of other people”.¹⁵But a justifiable answer will be to consider the Shamans as individuals whose existence in the physical world is coupled with his undisputed and chosen role to function in the reality of the myth. It is widely acclaimed that the depth of Shaman culture has been curiously continuous in the presence of metaphorical and symbolic overtones. Probably, the lack of clarity in their prophecies condemns them as comic tricksters. The comedy may not be apparent in the manner of the performance of a comedian but it may be comic in terms of transcending the limitations of logical understanding. Likewise, as stated above the Shamans commanding God, to tell the truth, may confuse us even more and may even make us laugh. It is evident that the Shamans appear to be tricksters who entangle their victim with their mesmerising vocabulary. At this point, we would like to contradict by focussing on the authenticity of their prophecies which is relational and subject to social facts and hence logical or rational in approach. In a similar manner, we would like to contradict Dowson by saying that the Shamans do not control the behaviour of the people since they are already manifested in their psychology in the form of primeval truths and shared realities.

The Shamans use a vocabulary, which calls for an imaginative mind transcending the limitations of conceptual logic. Their prophecies possess the power of merging into the world of inner imageries and visions. The Shaman seems to derive the gift of prophecy not from the natural world but another world, having experienced its strange yet enchanting dimensions. “...for he can now, even with his closed eyes, see through darkness and perceive things and coming events which are hidden from others; thus he looks into the future and the secrets of others”.¹

Mircea Eliade, Romanian historian of religion and fiction considers Shamanism to be the most archaic and widely distributed occult tradition. The Shamans and their prophecies voice the presence of such tradition bearing relation to the classically isolated fields like religion and language.

In Conformity with Rituals for Harbouring a Reality above Three Dimensional Space:

Shamans can be seen constructing reality in the manner of a ritual. In a Shamanistic ritual a Shaman undertakes the process of discovering the unknown and future realities which are known as jokhana (divination, oracle). This is followed by continuous chanting and violent trembling with the accompaniment of drum beats. For a moment, it seems that the Shamans have become magicians casting a spell of belief which is above waking consciousness and three-dimensional space on its seekers and viewers. “After a few minutes, Uttar begins to react. He starts shaking to the rhythm of the drum, his shoulders and crossed legs moving up and down with increasing force as if surrendering to the hypnotic effect of the beat”.¹⁴

The reality known to the Shamans transcends the reality on three-dimensional space and linear time known to our normal waking consciousness. Shamans deal with a world where the spirit provide wisdom and help or even threaten and destroy. It is believed that a Shamans vision can cure any internal and external injuries. The Shamans restore the psychic balance in the patient and the viewers by establishing a bond with the greater experience of human existence in the form of an alternate reality.

The Shaman named Prem Kala Sharma from Bermiok West Sikkim, India expressed his views on having received this gift of prophesising from his gurus at the age of thirteen. He says that his prophecies are powered by his knowledge of the Indian Vedas. In order to prophecise they enter into a trance-like a state and utter mantras tinged in the Vedas to make ecstatic revelations. It is really interesting to note that their prophecies are clad in the knowledge of the ancient IndianVedas which appears to have supernatural overtones, “Om nardalabhimsen, so patrikabhimsen, akashbadajalthala.” These lines reflect the Shamans reliance on animism as he invokes akash meaning sky and badal meaning cloud. According to him, shamanistic knowledge had its source in Hinduism. He stressed on the importance of Sanatan or kul dharma for empowering him with the magical mantras which would heal many. According to him the mantras relied on Yajur Veda as the prettatwa or ghost was found within one of the Vedas. Prem Sharma believed that the concept of jungalee or supernaturally wild had its origin in Krishna Avatar where the evil Kanksa mercilessly Kills the offspring’s of Deoki as his death was pronounced in their hands.

An Indispensable Relationship between Magic and Logic:

According to Mangal Singh Limboo the knowledge he gained was written in skin and when he delivers his prophecies the deuta or God rides on his back. What was even more surprising was that he used the term deuta or God and bhooth or ghost synonymously. Their revelations spurred our inward sensibilities which rested on the fact that our universe is a source of enchanting influences which are surprisingly and above all genuinely magical. The source lies in the power which motivates from inside human beings. We successfully enlightened our quest for truth by yoking the objective truth in attaining the generalised reality through the subjective or rather the exchange of subjectivity enshrined in the ideologies of the east and the west. The Shamans attribute this power to their vocabulary which makes the patients of the Shamans respond as the truth of their expressions are present inside their minds in the form of myths and legends. The patients who seek the help of the Shamans believe that they have achieved enlightenment maturing to reason although they are in a state of confusion to distinguish and discriminate. There is an indication that the modern world progresses with the loss of the enchanting aspects of human existence. But the fact remains that the relationship between logic and magic is indispensable. The relationship though contradictory is but complementary. “It is known from Frances Yates that modern science and rational thought, including Bacon and Descartes, grew out of Renaissance magic”.¹¹Here magic means the power to evoke an urge to dream and desire. Men’s thoughts have been conditioned and not ingrained to welcome such thoughts and desires by moving between facts and fiction. Macbeth under the influence of the witches as personifications of magic and supernatural was jolted by its force. It is really intriguing to find a Shaman named Bhirkha Bhadur Rai of Meyong Basti, West Sikkim, India who speak of the magical world. His words were truly baffling and strong as anyone would want to suspend any disbelief as he appeared to be so confident and proud of being upholders of a faith which was on the threshold of dying. It was here that one could decide to forgo what we as twenty-first century men and women proudly proclaim of being rationalist and scientific. There was something in him which seem to connect to our very being, as it overpowered us we could identify with his ideas as if it was trying to be voiced and preserved. His words penetrated unto our souls as he said “sancho cha” meaning, it is true.

The Inevitable Presence of Alternate Truth:

We were, effortlessly, drawn towards the magical alternate truth represented by the Shamansas humans are conditioned and not fed or ingrained by the greater reality. It was here that we found it important to voice the modern condition of the aboriginal tribes of the Nepalese community which is on the verge of dying not until we could weigh it under shades of liminal state to justify its authenticity. The words of the Shaman Bhirkha Bhadur Rai, echoes with the force of dilemma faced in liminal situations standing between artistic representations and reflexive probing. Bhirkha Bahdur says that the “thuthuriveda” meaning oral veda, a gift to the chosen ones like him. He said that this art of oral Veda could not be mastered by all and that he was taught this art in his dream by his guru. In the language of the Rai’s an aboriginal tribe of the Nepalese community, he says “ulkanasaptuchotulwachachangechayupa, maibimikubimi, mamabungchunabungsakwatama tamada, Lekhu bhabhimi Tirimida chapmarichaptu, sachilamsamalam” meaning I belong to this clan and my destiny has been written in my mothers womb. I received this gift of oral Veda in my dream. The Rai’s of the Nepali community proclaim themselves to be the generation of the kirat’s or Lord Shiva. Their unflinching faith in Brahma, Vishnu, Mahesh which they worship in the form of “Chula dhunga” or three stones can even restore the dead as they ask these deities for life or “ayu magnu”. The Shaman said with a heavy heart that people no longer respond to the call of the magical alternate world. He said that his whole family was almost swept away by a landslide since people no longer have faith in the unseen. The people with the coming of science destroy divinity by cutting trees and polluting waterfalls which isbelieved to be the home of “devi, naag, nagini” or Goddess, male and female snake God and Goddess.

Today it is the time to create the same liminal space by considering Shamanism as a human science and not a tale of psychic frenzy. Human beings are moved by desires. Images and expressions play a vital role in inciting desires in human beings. However, the images gain strength by relying on things deposited in memory. Therefore the paper seeks to justify the role of Shamans who make use of image and metaphorical expressions which voices the movement between fact and fiction.

The integration between physical and abstract reality could be established due to the relationship between religion and language that the patient and audience can identify with and therefore real. Evans Pitchard said,

Science deals with relations, not with origins and essences. A relational analysis can be made at any point where religion is in functional relation to any other social facts moral, ethical, economic, juridical, aesthetic and scientific and when it has been made at all points, we have as full a sociological understanding of the phenomenon as we are ever likely to have. ¹²

CONCLUSION:

The debate of Shamans being tricksters, we would like to assert that they are not tricksters but a product of the mystical universe that they cannot overpower. Their prophecies contain the element of mystical reality, a mysterious power which includes religious or spiritual experience. Of course, it is true that they are condemned as tricksters since they make us view what doesn’t exist in the physical plane. But the fact remains that both the patient and the audience experience a transformation of viewing reality. Infact, their understanding reaches yet another level of growth as they move from the unknown to understanding and from disconnection to compassion. Belonging to an aboriginal tribe of the Nepali community, it gives us immense pleasure to connect to the greater reality preserved from ages. It is agreeable that the success of Shamans in shaping reality is because we could identify with compassion to a reality which though strange and unfamiliar is ours and of the human world. We would like to quote the eminent Nepali poet Bal Krisha Sama (1903) who like a Shaman uses a means to reach the unknown and ecstatic reality and transform our vision of viewing reality, “When I want a shapeful dream I write poetry,/And when I want dreamlike shape I paint/(Sama).¹⁶ Perhaps we could say if we want to transform our approach of viewing reality, we would go to the Shamans.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT:

The authors are grateful to ICSSR for financial assistance.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST:

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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Received on 07.11.2018 Modified on 05.12.2018

Res. J. Humanities and Social Sciences. 2018; 9(4): 803-809.

DOI: 10.5958/2321-5828.2018.00135.3