Planetary Technoetics: Art, Technology and Consciousness
“It takes a constructive and pro-active approach to the social, technological and spiritual aspirations of the emerging planetary society, while sustaining a critical awareness of the retrograde forces and fields that inhibit social harmony and cultural transformation.
Ascott points to Narby's work to show that there may be much to gain in both the sciences and the arts from research that “seeks correspondences and collaborations between the two technologies of machines and plants, within the natrificial (natural/artifical) space of the Three Vrs, virtual, validated and vegetal.” Narby hypothesizes that the shaman's visions come from communication with his/her DNA, the bridge to this state being hallucinogenic plants such as ayahuasca.
However, the body itself as a bridge to this state is never mentioned. The Bushmen of South Africa reach similar states merely through communal dance and song. The shamans in such states experience smelling and seeing people's sicknesses as if they have x-ray vision. For some, the dance becomes so strong that it actually takes over the dancer. The dancer no longer moves, but is moved! There is a total loss of control and the body takes over. Many of the Bushman doctors talk of going through a “dying” state in order to pass into an altered consciousness from where they may heal. As they enter this state, their eyes and lips begin to twitch, there are spontaneous vocalizations, muscle tightness, abdominal pumping, tingling sensations of the skin etc.. (149 Keeney).
So, I wonder if one of the “retrograde forces and fields that inhibit social harmony and cultural transformation” is a fear of wild communal activity. Granted, we have our clubs and festivals, but for most people, they may only experience the wildness of their body with a lover. I don't think our culture pays the body due respect.
Honestly, I think scientists should be moving into such altered states through “dance”, “movement”, whatever name you'd like to give it, as much as they should be reading journals and experimenting in the lab.
Bushmen/ Bradford Keeney
2 comments:
I did not read the articles mentioned on your and others' posts about the nature of shaman's trance or visions, but I want to express my thoughts on some of your comments on readings and perspectives. Among the peoples with whom I have worked in the Amazon in the last ten years, none of them use hallucinogenic plants to communicate with spirits. The shamans in Xingu Park, for example, only smoke tobacco in their cure rituals. Also, when a shaman dreams, he/she might enter in a kind of other dimension, that enables he/she to SEE. Only they can see things that an ordinary person cannot see and communicate with spirits of plants and animals. Once we were comparing the concepts of "biodiversity" between the western science and the indigenous perspective, and
in the concept constructed with the teachers, biodiversity would relate to every living being in the world, and the main characteristic needed to be a living being is to have a spirit: rocks, animals, plants, stars, all have spirit in their view. I don't like to try to explain spiritual and cosmological worldview through science. It's just like try to explain faith and intervene in other peoples' beliefs. I see indigenous peoples spirituality as something really (and gladly) that science cannot explain or have a grasp on...and we are all humans, but with so diverse worldview...that's what keep us alive, the diversity of worldviews, languages, peoples, cultures...and the interaction between them.
And yes, every one should try to go out of mind and dance, shake, meditate, leave the body or go into some crazy augmented-mediated reality...whatever opens you change your perspective, makes you stronger.
let's dance...
I have enjoyed reading both of your posts. Talking about curing rituals, I have read that the people of Bali believe that stories can heal, and storytellers are regarded as shamans. It is hearing about other beliefs that helps me to shift my perspective, and look at things in a fresh way.
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