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Description
Reworked version of Convulsions www.deviantart.com/undefinedre… . Sometimes it can be fun to just go through aulde stuff and work from there.

I'm not that schaman-friendly at all to be honest. Apart from the intimate connection between schamanism and fascism - both being utterly tribal and conservative - there's the issue of 'higher', 'spiritual' knowledge. When the AIDS crisis was at its peak, South African schamans were either denying AIDS existed at all, or advising their patients to eat lots of onions as a cure. Which is a very schamanic thing to do. After all, that is what the spirits of the ancestors had told them, so what could a dumb scientist, stuck in the inferior material state of affairs, possibly know.

On the other hand, the idea of the schaman traveling in the affterlife is of course irresistibly appealing. Even if they're getting the facts all wrong, they still have the better narrative.

Fact versus narrative - a very important distinction for understanding the modern (as well as the old) world.

Speaking of narrative: a schaman has two main tasks: a) to maintain harmony within the tribe, which involves not only a mediating role in conflict, but also healing the sick - those who suffer from inner conflict, and b) to spiritually destroy the schaman of the next village, so that its inhabitants, having lost their spiritual protection, can easily be conquered and cast into serfdom. Love and hate, two things science doesn't have on offer.

Description
Reworked version of Convulsions www.deviantart.com/undefinedre… . Sometimes it can be fun to just go through aulde stuff and work from there.

I'm not that schaman-friendly at all to be honest. Apart from the intimate connection between schamanism and fascism - both being utterly tribal and conservative - there's the issue of 'higher', 'spiritual' knowledge. When the AIDS crisis was at its peak, South African schamans were either denying AIDS existed at all, or advising their patients to eat lots of onions as a cure. Which is a very schamanic thing to do. After all, that is what the spirits of the ancestors had told them, so what could a dumb scientist, stuck in the inferior material state of affairs, possibly know.

On the other hand, the idea of the schaman traveling in the affterlife is of course irresistibly appealing. Even if they're getting the facts all wrong, they still have the better narrative.

Fact versus narrative - a very important distinction for understanding the modern (as well as the old) world.

Speaking of narrative: a schaman has two main tasks: a) to maintain harmony within the tribe, which involves not only a mediating role in conflict, but also healing the sick - those who suffer from inner conflict, and b) to spiritually destroy the schaman of the next village, so that its inhabitants, having lost their spiritual protection, can easily be conquered and cast into serfdom. Love and hate, two things science doesn't have on offer.