Plastic Shamans, Quantum Bunkum & cargocultic Traditions 6 comments

11 Apr 2009 @ 22:35, by Max Sandor (a few lines from my new book ("Beyond Good and Evil"): "...it's quite a strange Sunday Brunch buffet scene what we see these days in the market of spiritual self-help, gurus&avatars, and the new memes of 'technology' for spiritual purposes. Enlightend by a weekend course or two, equipped with magical symbols and mantras, backed by a false certainty of being in line with the concepts of modern 'science', more and more people jump around pretending to heal others without being able to heal themselves first. Very well, within a pluralistic and rather free society anything should be possible and permissable that is not going to harm others. And with the contemporary medicine being bought out by super-companies and having been turned into a giant business operation, it is hardly possible that any such new method or applied philosophy could be worse. For certain, most of them cost much less than a single visit at a doctor's office, not counting the costs for the presciption drugs and their side effects that one walks away with, often for the rest of one's life. Many 'sceptics'... or those who claim to be, certainly don't think twice about what choice to take, yet their own language is that of a cult. With their foul language they betray their own ideals and usually do the opposite of what they pretend to do: instead of discrimination they enjoy incrimination, instead of analysis they prefer to insult persons, But the modern gurus are making themselves an easy target: whether by borrowing titles like 'shaman' or 'mestre' or 'nagual' from older 'traditions', or whether by usurping modern scientific concepts like DNA, evolution, and Quantum Physics for their own metaphysical concepts, the modern gurus are living off existing Memes, reshaped to fit one's own shoes. ...Some argue that a 'real shaman' MUST come from Siberia and everyone else would be an artificial, cheap copy, a 'plastic shaman', so to speak. After all, the 'word' shaman originated there. That's a lot like the 'cognac' argument: a cognac must be made around the city of Cognac, France, in order to deserve its name, and nothing else should be called that way. Yet the same people don't find a common word for all the spiritual and physical healers of the various traditions and cultures of the past who helped make humanity survive until today. For many, those were simply charlatans, of course, and, at the most, they may sometimes obtain results because of the placebo effect, and only because of it. If only the modern medicine drugs would work that way, with the success rate of a placebo and without long term side effects, mankind would be much, much better off, of course... As if it wouldn't be enough to borrow from exotic philosophies, modern science has a lot to offer as an upgrade. Since few people understand even the basics of Quantum Physics (a theory, let's not forget this!), it is quite save to claim a relation or even compatibility with one's own hocus-pocus... ...'Traditions' don't offer an escape either: most of them have forgotten what the very words once meant that they're echoing, often using bizarre translations. Today's religions really are ALL cargo cults, if one looks closely enough. On the other end of the spectrum, some 'religions' that were founded in the 60's already claim to be a 'tradition'. What makes a tradition a 'tradition'?

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