by bosco (Ben)

In September 2007, bosco spent some weeks reading shamanism forums and websites beyond alt.religion.shamanism. What he found unsettled him: a culture of credentialism, where the authority to speak about shamanic practice was being grounded in expensive pilgrimages to jungle shamans, or in studied dismissals of core shamanism as an inferior form. He sat with it for weeks, then wrote.

This post is bosco at his most discursive and philosophical — less a journey account than a meditation on authenticity, ego, and what it means to actually know something. His defense of experiential knowing over purchased authority is one of the more direct statements of practitioner epistemology in the archive.

The observation that "if you can not learn most of what you need to learn in your own back yard, all anyone has done is go on a long trip" is characteristic: plain, slightly cranky, and difficult to argue with.

My apology in advance because even though it is not my intent, nor even a hidden purpose I may offend someone who will read this.

I was looking over the past few weeks at some different groups on Shamanism, to see what others are doing and what they think. What I found was very different and to me unusual. I imagine it is because their purpose for their posting and their sites is a lot different than what I read here on ARS. Maybe there are other reasons, that I am not able to understand, but I will go with what I read.

I read a number of multiple group think type postings written very nicely, telling someone how wrong they are in their approach, or in their thinking. They were well written and on the surface very polite, but they left me with a bad taste in my mouth and some undertones of superiority in some of the text.

For example, someone asks a question or puts forth a thought, and they receive several replies telling them politely and subtly how they are wrong, and the folks who reply know this because they studied with so and so who studied with so and so who spent a lot of money getting to the source in the Amazon jungle with a shaman who is more connected to the earth than anyone else on earth, and they drank ayahuasca or some such so they have the true insight.

I find this interesting not in the fact that one or more folks with a sincere interest in Shamanism have journeyed so far physically, and undertaken something so unique, but that they, or others seem to think they now possess secret knowledge that others could not possibly have access to.

To beat your drum if you are in some form Shamanism related business I can understand. I don't see a conflict with letting folks know to what ends an individual has undertaken to gain more perspective or knowledge. But to indirectly promote the idea that because one traveled to some Shaman living in the jungle, who is on the internet with their own web site, and very much into modern capitalism, gives that particular individual or those who they then take under their tutelage some superior insight and therefore by association, greater skill or power — I find very odd.

Then I have read attacks on what is called core shamanism, and subtle undercurrents that it is somehow inferior to whatever the poster happens to be promoting in their post. I found that very curious, as it is sort of like core breathing is an incorrect way for most people to get oxygen into their lungs and there is another secret method of which only they know. But on a saving note, for a price they will share what they know.

Now that the ice below my feet is getting a little thin, I am going to step out a little further. Most of the older posters here were either self taught or learned from their own social group or family. I think they knew what they knew, and they understood the boundaries that they were allowed to practice in and how to practice in a fashion that their spirits preferred. I have not read here in ARS, or not often anyway, anyone claiming that they have the all knowing key and everyone else participating is somehow inferior to themselves. If they did, I imagine their stay in ARS was a short one.

I wouldn't be so silly as to insist that many of these folks are not sincere in their self promotion, but I do think either ego or greed has tainted their perspective. I may be now giving my own tainted perspective, but it seems to me that if you can not learn most of what you need to learn in your own back yard, all anyone has done is go on a long trip. I do understand the advantages that such an occasion could have, as one could quickly fill in a lot of gaps, and learn some technique quickly, but to suggest that one can go to some primitive area and meet with a local Shaman and have more than an experience or two, I am a little cynical about. The cultural difference, the separate physical locations from where one came from to where one is going to, and the language would seem to have an impact on how much can be absorbed in a short visit. To put it in a local tense, I can tell you where I go, and where I have been, but that doesn't mean you can get there too. I have read many accounts of places I have yet to see or experience on ARS, although I have stumbled into some of them quite by accident and recognize them from a post I have read in the past.

I wish I had some nice cute wrap up of all this, but I am simply writing what has been on my mind these past weeks. Once again my apology if I have written anything to offend you, it was not my intent.

Colophon

Written by bosco (Ben) and posted to alt.religion.shamanism on September 22, 2007. Ben was a self-taught shaman and one of the most consistent practitioner voices on alt.religion.shamanism from roughly 2003 to 2009. This post stands as one of the group's clearest defenses of experiential knowing over credential-based authority — and a pointed critique of the commercialization of shamanic practice that was emerging in the mid-2000s internet.

Preserved from the Usenet archive for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026. Original Message-ID: 2007092123483016807-boscopelone@yahoocom.

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