The Shaman Reborn in Cyberspace
Evolving Magico-Spiritual Techniques of Consciousness-making
By Manie Eagar
With the expansion of
consciousness comes new ways of seeing reality.
The
hypercontextual pretexts, contexts and subtexts created by
the new technologies of virtual, immersive and cyber
realities create boundaryless experiences that are analogous
to the archaic techniques evolved through shamanic journeys
designed to transcend all human boundaries.
The
magico-spiritual imagination, far from disappearing in our
supposedly secular age, continues to feed the utopian
dreams, apocalyptic visions, digital phantasms, and alien
obsessions that populate today's "technological
unconscious." The language and ideas of the information
society have slipped into and even transformed the myriad
worlds of contemporary spirituality. What is emerging is a
networked framework for grappling with some of the impulses
that are currently tearing us apart: spirit and the machine,
modernity and nihilism, technology and the human.
‘We
find ourselves trapped on a cyborg sandbank, caught between
the old, smouldering campfire stories and the new networks
of programming and control.’ We are ‘beached’ between the
archaic sea of our magico-spiritual ancestors, freshly
emerged from our proto-modern past, and spawned into the
postmodern reality of fragmented selves, networked options,
downloadable digitised consumerware and ‘technologies of
ecstacy’.
The Shaman Reborn in Cyberspace
Cave in the Mind - Mind in the Cave
Seeking the 'source' of
Conscious Will
This
paper explores
the 'source' of will and the factors that shape its outcome,
(intended or not) such as magico-religious practices (ancient
and modern) and the latest neoshamanic techniques to identify,
shape and give effect to conscious will.
From our
(mind in the) caveman to our present postmodern stance, man has
sought for answers to the questions: What am I consciousness of
and what is reality? And further: Do I have any say in the
matter, and how far out does my own volition, my will, extend?
Is there a True Will?
Or are we
the cave dwellers of this reality along the lines of Plato's
Allegory of the Cave where '.they see only their own shadows, or
the shadows of one another, which the fire throws on the
opposite wall of the cave?'
If
consciousness can be altered, and is layered, as the ancient
shamans discovered, and modern science is dissecting, what are
the 'patterns that connect', and where do the intrepid
psychonaut's wilful explorations lead?
With the
expansion of consciousness comes new ways of seeing reality and
applying will. The hypercontextual pretexts, contexts and
subtexts created by the new technologies of virtual, immersive
and cyber realities create boundaryless experiences that are
analogous to the archaic techniques evolved through shamanic
journeys designed to transcend all human boundaries.
Deliberate attempts at discovering True Will has become the
mainstay of the Western magico-religious traditions, through
which the practitioner engages with, and traverses 'all
realities and existences', to give effect to and manifest their
True Self.
The Coming Forth of Raka
Trickster-god:
Spirit of Disorder - Enemy of Boundaries
In sleepy hollows, where time has come to
naught
Dwell
spirits and beasts, their names forgot
They nod and
weave through languid thought
Coiled and
arrested in their tight knot.
In the
darkness some thing stirs in unformed coat
Welling
pools of slime caught in the aeons’ moat
Slithers and
turns until it rises slender and narrow
To roil down
dark moist corridors of mind’s marrow.
Then, it
lurches forth and stands gated
At the dark
entrance of the night, naked
Shadows
uncloaking from the night
Their truth
revealed in their moment of plight.
A knowing
grows stronger, its presence near
Memories
well up - shapes appear
A sense of
knowing now stands clear
As forms
take shape as if always there.
"To them, I said, the truth would be literally nothing but the
shadows of the images."
The Allegory of the Cave,
Plato c360BCE, from Book VII of The Republic
The only purpose of life is to live as closely as
possible to reality
