Heads

Head 2.2: The Shaman

The shaman can be classified as one who works with myth. I do not use this term in the derogatory sense of "Just a myth" but rather see a myth as something of great power. (Think of your favourite films/books/characters etc). I apply this term not only to stories but also characters, places, objects, sigils, etc. Whereas the scientist sees everything in terms of mechanical causes the shaman sees everything in terms of conscious causes. To the shaman everything is conscious; trees, planets, electrons, everything. Hence all events can be explained in terms of words like "desire" and "will". All events form stories.

The law of analogy "A is like B" can be seen as the root of the mythic head. Understanding analogy allows the shaman to navigate through myths and also grasp the relations between the separate myths.

Every event, person, thing has it's own myth and although they all overlap and interrelate each can still in a sense be seen as individual. There doesn't seem to be much point in identifying one form of a myth and claiming this is the "true form" or "root form". Different forms arise: that is all. I say this because myths are in a sense irreducible, you cannot extract parts from the whole and say what part does what. The significance of a myth lies only in it's overall structure hence they cannot be analysed for a single "meaning" as any myth has as many meanings as you wish to ascribe to it. To say what a myth "means" means merely to tell a new but related myth.

Occultist, new-agers and others tend to work mainly on the mythic circuit, and these provide a good example of it's major danger. It is all to easy to end up falling into one myth and declare it "God" or "Enlightenment" or "The Way" or some such crap. This naturally leads to the poor misguided fool closing their mind instead of opening it.

The shamanic head does however have many uses, it can be profoundly useful in creating psychological change if used with the metaprogrammer and all art, history and self seems to arise from this head. Most also find it to be quite enjoyable. It can be reached by psychedelics or cannabis or by occult rituals. Once you have become accustomed to this head you should be able to reach it just by thinking about it.

Further Reading:

• Hakim Bey's essays
• Michael Moorcock- Blood trilogy
• Claude Levi-Strauss
• Stuart Gordon- Smile on the Void (possibly out of print)
• William Burroughs