Indians [sic] and shamans [neo-sick]
My German family emigrated to America in the 1950s. My Oma (grandmother) became an educator (assessor of children’s learning levels and needs) on the Navajo Reservation, where my family also lived for a while.
In my late teens and early twenties I travelled from the UK to spend time living with my grandmother in an area called the Checkerboard because squares of land belong to the Navajo Nation (a dependent state existing within the independent state of America) and some squares belong to the Federal Government of the US.
While there I took up Navajo language classes and met a Navajo woman who worked for the Navajo Nation Government. Her work involved travelling hundreds of miles daily over the Reservation. She invited me to travel with her for four months and during that time she adopted me as her daughter, introducing me to Navajo or Hopi Native Americans as her daughter.
First point:
Native Americans are NOT Indians
Native Americans are NOT American Indians
Native Americans are NOT North American Indians
They are Native Americans because they are the original people native to that continent; any other name carries with it a shed load of political hegemony and implicit colonial abuse.
I learned a lot from my Navajo mother and her friends about what was considered acceptable to Native Americans, what were sore points, how their history affected them … how thousands were deliberately wiped out by white Europeans distributing plague-ridden blankets among them; how some native peoples have been completely exterminated. Their history is no less painful, political and rife for misunderstanding than the Jewish Holocaust and the Armenian Holocaust, to name but two.
After my time on the Reservation, I went to Germany where I spent a year beginning my translation career. There I encountered a heavily sunbedded female with a suede, fringed jacket, plaits and feathers in her hair. She “identified” with “Indians” [sic]. I felt sick to my stomach at her ignorance. No. Don’t give me any bullshit about naive enthusiasm: if you are truly interested in a Native Path then do your research, learn the history, the current politics and the current discussions around the misappropriation of native culture and spirituality, which continues to this day, and is felt by so many NAs to be a continuation of the colonial hegemony they have had to suffer for centuries.
Following on from this: the word “shaman” has become a word bandied around as easily as “witch” (I will deal with that another day). Banging a drum, chanting and speaking to imaginary spirits does not make you a shaman. Pretending that you “journey” every time you touch a rock does not make you a shaman, nor does it make your experience “shamanic.” The concept of “journeying” has also been watered down to be meaningless half the time.
There is no documentation of shamanic culture per se in the British Isles. If you refer to Celtic shamanism, the same point applies as there is no documented proof of exactly what the Celts did except for tales told by Roman historians, and the Romans defeated the Celts … we all know what history is like when written by the victors (blood sacrifice, baby-eating, water poisoning, with the odd truth thrown in – who can say what is true and what isn’t?).
I met two shamans/medicine men on the Reservation and they gave me none of the “foot in both worlds” bullshit, none of the “hang on, I’m just speaking to my spirit guide, Jack”.
If you look at shamanism as practised amongst Native peoples in America (there are many different peoples – different languages, different religious practices, although most will have a name for themselves that translates as “The people” – consider the Navajo word for themselves “Diné”), and if you look in particular at the shamanic practices still found in Siberia you will see a very different picture from the neo-Shamanic practices of British/European wannabes.
As a knowledgeable friend concurred, calling yourself a “traditional shaman” is a tautology shouting “fluff” because true shamanism is by definition “traditional”. However, the word “traditional” sells more books, doesn’t it? Kerching! $££$$£
Shamans are known for communicating with spirits, but again, this is not a running conversation with an ancestor sitting on your knee, your hand up its spiritual backside as you channel its wisdom. No. Communication with spirits is usually within the context of an ecstatic ritual, or within a ritual context that will suspend the natural (or more apparent) senses.
Be warned that not all is what it seems. I have met two shamans. One I had more contact with than the other. But they were not bullshitters.
If you are interested in Native American spirituality – remember that there are many, many different Native American peoples and that not all are the same. Have the courtesy to research their history and their current politics. Read authors such as Ward Churchill – academic historians; don’t just read people with fake names like Starhawk (who is a respectable neo-pagan but NOT a Native American).
And if you come across someone calling themselves a “shaman”, add “neo” in front plus a large pinch of salt. Don’t part with money. Trust your gut. And read around the subject.
©StarofSeshat 2011
Thought for the Day 2
Taken from “Modern Luciferian” by Rev. Frederick Nagash
To the Luciferian nothing comes before the self and its development and progress into the new or “manifested self”. We constantly strive to improve our-self and our “Utopia” to live the only life we’ll have to the fullest …
Everything in your Utopia is a manifestation of your own will, for good or bad. If you let someone use or take advantage of you, don’t complain about it later, eliminate them like the parasite they are. Tell them you no longer will let them feed off of you and you don’t want them around you any longer, erase them from your existence. If you want more money get a better job, or higher education to be paid more, the weight of your own existence is in your hands. This total responsibility of the creation and maintenance of your Utopia is what frightens off most people, we’re not most people! …
Finally, the term Luciferian can never be given to one with the following attributes:
- Someone who speaks without action.
- Someone who blames others for their own faults.
- Someone who has no thirst of [sic] life or knowledge.
- Someone who cares little about them self [sic].
- Someone who is afraid or hesitant of total liberation.
- Someone who thinks Luciferianism is their way or no way. Luciferianism and Luciferic Thought should never be systemized [sic] or standardized to the point of alienation of individual thought.
- Someone who thinks that they’re “evil”. Evil and Good are creations of Christianity, not of individual thought.
- Someone who feels as though they need to talk, act or dress a certain way.
- Someone who feels the world treats them so horribly so in turn they adapt [sic] the I don’t care anything [sic] attitude “Apathy”.
Spelling and grammar mistakes are his 
and apart from his rather superficial comment that Evil and Good are creations of Christianity (maybe he should study pre-Christian philosophy and religious-cultural comparative studies), I agree with much of what he says; in particular his stance against having a victim mentality and bowing in apathy to a world we think it “just so unfair”. Luciferianism is a spirituality of adults not teenagers or children. We have to take responsibility for our own lives, for the people we surround ourselves with, for our financial, emotional and health issues. If we have abdicated this responsibility in any way by relying too heavily on others then we need to take our power back otherwise how can we hope to meet others as equals let alone as superiors?
Health is a major issue for me. I do everything I can to maintain enough of a balance to stay functioning and working. Throughout my illness, the days in bed, the days in pain, I continued to work and maintain my financial independence. Having grown up with debt, this is tremendously important to me. I have seen sick people rely so greatly on their loved ones that even if they became well they would be entrenched in NEEDING (emotionally, financially and mundanely) the support of others; in being ill they have abdicated ALL of their power. Nagash’s text also reminded me of a woman I know who was extremely unhappy in her life. She felt misunderstood, unloved and neglected by her husband. Over the years her asthma turned into emphysema which became so chronic she needed a lung transplant, which nearly killed her. I knew her before the emphysema and remember her sitting at her kitchen table crying. She said she felt like Life’s train had passed her by and she was standing on the platform watching as it rattled through the station without stopping for her. It was a very sad moment and incredibly frustrating for an outsider. I saw that the only person who could stop that train was her. She was waiting for her husband to listen to her, for him to treat her with more respect and love … and she waited, and waited. She was literally choking on the suppression of her own Will. Her illness meant that eventually he HAD to focus more attention on her, he HAD to give her more time. Passive aggression will out, and often the person acting the biggest victim has the most power over a situation. I personally can’t stand people who moan and whinge about a situation that 1. can’t be changed (so find a way to deal with it) or 2. they are the ones with the power to say yes or no to the situation, to actually do something about it, instead of waiting for other people or Fate to make their lives better. I can’t think of one person I know who hasn’t had shit happen to them in their lives: sexual abuse as children, rape, parental bullying, homelessness, loss of work, loss of loved ones, etc. etc. etc. But the way people respond to life varies greatly. Some assume the mantle of victim and wrap it so tightly around themselves you will never ever find skin. Others bluster action and do nothing. Others quietly act and forge their way through life. Others oscillate between all behaviours (if I am honest, that is probably me – but at least I am aware of this!).
So to turn Rev. Nagash’s attributes of a non-Luciferian into positive ‘writs’:
- Always follow your words with action
- Know your faults and root them out in your own heart
- Drink from the well-spring of life and knowledge
- Care about yourself (aim to care more than anyone else has ever cared for you)
- Be courageous and embrace total liberation
- Live Luciferianism as YOU see fit
- Don’t concern yourself with being evil or good – just BE
- Dress and act how you like (really, who cares?)
- Take responsibility for your life without leaning too heavily on others – shirk off the chains of apathy. The only way to be truly free of the world is to throw yourself into it.
©BatShedim 2008
Thought for the day 1
I heard a man say this morning that the point of religious practice is to create a sense of perspective on the world. It takes us beyond the everyday mundane and puts our trials and pain into a context.
A Christian would say that the pain they suffer – the anger, fear, loneliness etc. – is a result of their sinful condition. They might also say that experiencing the pain brings them closer to the suffering of Christ on the cross, and hence to the salvation he brings them. They look for the light outside of themselves, and they head towards it.
A Luciferian would recognise anger, fear, loneliness and pain of all kinds as innate to the human condition. That’s life. C’est la vie. Things will always make us angry, people will always hurt us, no one can bridge the internal loneliness except us by finding the courage to allow certain people in. The Luciferian would work towards mastery of that inner darkness; reaching a place where we are not ruled by such passions, but where we truly control them to our Will. By pushing these internal boundaries, we become our own Source of Light. We become Lucifer, the Bringer of Light.
No one said this was an easy path. I myself am swayed daily by the emotions that others bring up in me (distress, worry, fear, anger, rejection). Until I gain mastery over my Self, and work through the internal dross, beat away at the outmoded habits and behaviours, I will continue to be ruled by others and reAct to their actions. It is a life’s journey working towards detaching myself from such knee-jerk reActions; working towards the day when I take back control, act from my Will instead of re-acting to others’ Wills. There is a romanticism about being ruled by our passions, and yet as Luciferians, we should not wished to be ruled by anything except our own cool Will. That does not negate the experience of passion, quite the opposite. It frees us to partake in a deeper passion, frees up energies that are squandered on people who don’t deserve it, so we can experience bliss with those who do.
No one said this was an easy path.
©BatShedim 2008
