I'm beginning to lose interest in The Cosmic Serpent, the book I mentioned yesterday. He writes at some length about stuff I find uninteresting, such as the way he organizes his files - which - I could give a rat's ass about. Should I care? Why did he include it in the book? To make himself seem more rational? It's odd, I think.
I liked the reindeer, spirits and people book better. That, too, was written by an anthropologist, but in the case of the reindeer book, he wrote about the people, their myths and history, rather than about himself. It makes a difference.
Tonight will be, I think, movie night. Forget the reindeer, forget Peruvian shamans high on plant based hallucinogens. Forget wondering why shamanism is so hard for modern western civilized people to grasp (or, wondering why it's so clear to me). I might let go of every noble pursuit and instead: veg out.
Tomorrow I'm seeing clients, hence will not have a lot of time to read. I love studying and learning so much, but enough is enough, hey?
6 comments:
I read Joseph Campbell's Primitive Mythology and one of the things that stood out and may explain why the western world has trouble with shamanism or recognizing the energy of the world is when he talks about the split between east and west. The split is best described, by me, as eastern thought sees the world and all in it as a part of 'god' while the western world sees it as apart from 'god'. Something made and separate as one of my pieces is an objest made by me as opposed to the piece and the artist being one and the same.
The Enlightenment really screwed things up.
It's odd that he's lapsed into writing about himself. Where was HIS editor, I wonder??
Re. your comment above, I'm not sure the Enlightenment is to blame. Christianity from the very beginning cast the world and everything in it as objects to be used by man in order to "be fruitful and multiply," as outlined in Genesis. And boy have we ever!
I can see you need a bit of time out but I sure enjoyed your previous post.
Early Christians were extraordinarily mystical. It wasn't until the Enlightenment that Christianity rejected astrology, for instance.
Genesis, of course, is a Jewish text. But the Jews, too, were tribal mystics until the Enlightenment.
Yeah, take a break. Watch a movie. What will you decide to see?
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