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Eric,
There is an article in there but comparing Raves to
serious religion and misunderstanding that Ceremonial Art and Art for the Altar
or Proscenium Stage has been around in the West for at least four or five
thousand years. This article reminds me of the British
musicology student's comparison of the Beatles 32 bar song form endlessly
repeated to the Symphonies of Beethoven in the
1960s. They have disappeared and the Beatles got
their buck while the articles are ignored unless some enemy on their faculty
wants to embarrass them.
There is nothing primitive about shamanism except
the lack of affluence of most Shamans and the tendency to live and work in small
groups. They are no more primitive than the monks in the
countryside were in comparison to the city priests at the
time.
Jerome Rothenberg (Jewish poet) went north from New
York to spend a year amongst the Seneca Indians upstate. It
changed his life as it often does when the civilized impaired meet the
Houdensounee's Great Law of Peace. He then edited several
anthologies of Shamanic poetry and songs that he called "Technicians of the
Sacred" and made comparisons between the "religion of scale" of the West
(which is obsessed with group art "A Mighty Fortress is our God" and yet
prays for "liberty" ) and the sophisticated holistic analysis
that has impressed the writers for the last couple of hundred years on
meeting and confronting these "primitive" people. Eventually
all of that study made Rothenberg a better Jew since Shamanism is not about
convincing someone they are wrong but about them finding what is correct for the
balance of their lives, their family's life, their community and their Nation.
All it would take would be one night sitting with a
serious forty year old Iroquois analyzing English words while you keep him happy
spending every cent you've got just not to humiliate yourself for being
incapable of "giving back." These kids who play with
computers and technology have the right tools but they would be better off
beginning by giving them all away and finding out why they have that
love/hate relationship with their group. That they are stuck
in it but can't live with out it.
As for Music and Art, it will beat drugs
every time hands down for transcendence and meditation. But it
can't be just listening. You have to do it and understand the
meaning of discipline and what it means that you are the "instrument" that must
dialogue with all of the other instruments of the Universe if you are to "get
it." Yes String Quartets go to the same brain
states as Shamans. We'll admit it.
REH
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- [Futurework] Technoshamanism: Cyber-sorcery and schizoph... eric stewart
- Re: [Futurework] Technoshamanism: Cyber-sorcery and... Ray Evans Harrell
- Re: [Futurework] Technoshamanism: Cyber-sorcery... eric stewart
- Re: [Futurework] Technoshamanism: Cyber-sorcery and... mcandreb
