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[Halete]

So, as I don't see Vherokior shamans as seeking communion with the divine, and don't see any evidence to the contrary in PF, I asked myself "Is there a sense in which they can be called >mystics<?"
My answer is: Not in the sense 'practitioner of mysticism' but in the sense 'someone doing occultish and mysterious mumbo-jumbo'.

Which is the practice of mysticism.

Using the most loose definition, the pursuit of or engagement in mystical experiences or seeking knowledge of the unknowable is mysticism - which doesn't necessarily equate to transcendence.

Seems like a semantics issue, again? These are several branches of mysticism (real-world).

That said, if we ignore the word 'mysticism' altogether and I read what you said point for point, then I'd agree that Shamanism doesn't necessarily entail what you described as a mystic. But this is just my interpretation of Shamanism, and as I highlighted earlier, we can't/shouldn't take Shaman in EVE to be literal relative to our real-world definition of Shamans.

[Matariki Rain]

A shaman isn't trying to transcend his own boundaries of self and experience communion with the divine. He's not becoming one with the spirit realm, he's moving within it and ties to find solutions there for practical problems while remaining himself and apart from the spirits he encounters.

Maybe. That description could match the spirit-quest aspect of Matari shamanism, but I'm not sure that it captures the ecstatic aspect of Matari religion that I suspect is also part of the shamanic milieu.

It sounds like our main differences are in what we think shamans do, and whether "the divine" or "the transcendent" is something that has meaning in a Minmatar context. Maybe we'll explore those in play or stories. Maybe we'll retain our different views and carry them IC.

I'm happy with leaving this discussion where it is now: does that seem reasonable to you?

[Halete]

...
It sounds like our main differences are in what we think shamans do, and whether "the divine" or "the transcendent" is something that has meaning in a Minmatar context. Maybe we'll explore those in play or stories. Maybe we'll retain our different views and carry them IC.
...

I was going to say, it did seem like you were reaching that impasse.

[Gottii]

To generalise, shamans IRL are typically schizotypal. They're the "half-crazy" people somewhere on the continuum to schizophrenia: they can function in the specific social niche of spirit-guide and mediator for the world of myth and story/sea of dreams/unconscious. I imagine EVE shamans are like this, too, with most of them having "being a shaman" as a necessary lifestyle determined by their personal wiring and demons and focused by clan recognition and training, rather than it being a chosen day job for any likely child.

That said, I do think there are probably shamans or people in shaman-like roles out there who fit more into the day-job model, some of them even being a lot like a blend of the contemporary psychiatrist/clinical psychologist/counsellor. There will be some tension about what constitutes a "proper" shaman. "Proper" half-crazy shamans will be brought in for important rituals, while you might see a tamer one for clan pastoral care. Maybe.

Strongly disagree with the Minmatar shamans= schizotypal assumption you're making here, for a couple reasons. 

One, there is the unstated and underlying assumption that if youre religious/spiritual in a tribal environment (or really religious/spiritual at all) then obviously there is something mentally wrong with you.

Growing up where I did (Oklahoma for those who dont know, and Im part Choctaw and Comanche) I've met a couple of actually no kidding modern shamans.  Not one of them was what I would call schizotypal or mentally unstable.  They were quite articulate and urbane in fact.

 In the past, sure, Im sure some of those shamanistic practices could have been explained that way in the past, but hardly not all of their function or behavior (ignoring the fact that being a shaman meant a lot of different things to different tribes and nations).  Basically, I find the whole "primitive people, your religious practices can be explained by mental illness!" to be that kind of quasi-insulting, patronizing, and tone-deaf Eurocentric voice that anthropology can take on when its done poorly.  I think schizotypical behavior can explain quite a few areas of human interaction and specialized roles, in particular artists and scientists, not just shamans and religious people. (Picasso was Picasso, for instance, and Einstein was socially bizarre and kinda a creep personally).  I think it has more to do with having roles in society that you can excel in while not having to interact a lot with society at large, or only through limited and ritualized means, and brilliant but borderline individuals would naturally find their way there over time.

Even making the assumption that "IRL" shamanistic practices and roles in the past are explained by mental dysfunction, one I really disagree with, you're making the assumption that just because a role fit a certain role in the past means that it would in the future.  Lets take Catholic priests, for instance.  In Medieval Europe, you could characterize the priesthood as often made up of ambitious and talented young men, who used the priesthood as an means to attain political, economic and social power otherwise denied to them by their non-noble bloodlines.  Today?  Not so much.  The role hasnt changed, but the society around it has, and thus it changes the kind of people who find their way into the role.

I think of the Minmatar as a archetypical and tribal society, but not a primitive one.  Given that they have a neurological understanding vastly greater than ours today, its hard for me to see them go "My son!  He's a holy man!" when the response could likely be "actually...umm....according to our neural scan..hes autistic.  We can fix that." 

Also, I dont think Shamans in the schizotypical role would fly in say the Brutor Tribe, who seems to put an emphasis on physical training and achievement.  I doubt a society thats built around martial and physical excellence would accept "flawed" members to serve as the gate-keepers and councilors for their religious and social rites.   

Anyway, just my thoughts on this.

[Matariki Rain]

Hmmm...

Okay, yes, I'll engage on this one.

It looks like there are two opposing statements:

In the past, sure, Im sure some of those shamanistic practices could have been explained that way in the past [....]

Even making the assumption that "IRL" shamanistic practices and roles in the past are explained by mental dysfunction, one I really disagree with [...]

I'm not quite sure how to address those. The ideas seemed to shift during the writing, maybe?

Crucial point: you've had me going back to my sources for the idea of the schizotypal shaman, and my generalisation may have overstated the case. I think the strongest statements I can currently justify are that:
-- some key aspects of shamanism appear schizotypal
-- there are plausible theories that those aspects of shamanism may have been developed and reinforced by shamans who were themselves schizotypal
-- not all shamans who follow the traditions and do the schizotypal-looking things now are necessarily schizotypal.

I'm willing to go with the idea that you don't need to have visions to be a modern shaman, or to have personal visions of rapture and apocalypse to be a modern minister. My statement "[t]o generalise, shamans IRL are typically schizotypal" was not just overly broad but quite possibly incorrect: I don't know enough about shamans IRL to say what they're typically like. You make a fair point that social change may mean that the types of people who take certain social roles change, and shamanism may well be maintained by people who are "articulate and urbane".


Now to the rest, looking at frameworks.

One, there is the unstated and underlying assumption that if youre religious/spiritual in a tribal environment (or really religious/spiritual at all) then obviously there is something mentally wrong with you.

I question the use of "wrong" in this statement: I'm less interested in making moral judgements about things than in understanding them.

I do think that religious visionaries of any stripe tend towards the schizotypal. I think that--or wonder if--much visionary experience can be attributed to temporal-lobe epilepsy. I'm pretty sure that a fair bit of the rest of it can be induced by body-hacking to bring on ecstatic and/or hallucinatory states, as mentioned earlier in this thread. I also think that religious rituals and prohibitions may well show the input of OCD, particularly that form of OCD which is now called scrupulosity. This is not specifically aimed at societies which have shamans: Moses, Muhammad and Martin Luther all get swept up in these discussions.

Whether those contributing factors to religious/spiritual matters mean their adherents are "mentally wrong" is a whole 'nother issue. Some would say "Yes". Some would say "No, because the results are socially adaptive". Some would say "Get your DSM off my personality and religious experience". But that's not the discussion we're having just now.

I think schizotypical behavior can explain quite a few areas of human interaction and specialized roles, in particular artists and scientists, not just shamans and religious people.

Yep. I'm with you there. A driving force behind many things we value can be the personal itches of the people involved. (Although I'd like to think that even when the fascination might be obsessive, the techniques and testing in the sciences would be rigorous.)

The role hasnt changed, but the society around it has, and thus it changes the kind of people who find their way into the role.

I could very much see this affecting the type of people who became shamans in different social and cultural settings, yes.

If you'd like to chat about the general aspects of this further you know how to contact me. It's probably not a core focus for an EVE forum.


I was hoping to do a summary of the lineage of the theory of schizotypal shamanism. I've encountered it in contemporary sources. Following it back--to the European anthropologist Paul Radin who did fieldwork among the North American Winnebago/Ho-Chunk tribe and published an anthology of their Trickster stories with analytical essays by various luminaries of the time including Carl Jung--is turning into a rabbit-hole which has swallowed my morning. Incidentally, Radin seems to be aware of the issue of dominant cultures putting their own slant on things, and was trying to shape the discipline of ethology to manage that (as much as is possible for a dominant-culture academic discipline). Some of his vocab raises my hackles; some of his prefacing paragraphs soothe them somewhat; and I'm tossing up how much further I want to follow that up.

[Casiella]

@Casi: There wasn't yelling! Or even fake-yelling, really. Honestly my point came down to: if you don't like spiritualism in your Roleplay, don't play it - but if you want to play a Sebiestor that actually explores their roots, still consider that a viable option. My confusion was more along the lines with you seeming to (from my position) avoid Minmatar themed roleplay in general (even on Casi) because of this fact. There are plenty of Matari who don't touch the subject IC which is a perfectly valid way of playing Minmatar. It just kind of looks like you concluded at some point that playing a Minmatar that explored Sebiestor culture would invariably mean a lot of spiritual RP, which I don't think is really necessary.

I should have appended a " " and just forgot. I understood the tone in which you meant our conversation and no feelings were harmed on this end.

And to clarify: it's not that I think that I would have to do anything I wouldn't want to do, but that I'd be interacting with a lot of characters who'd possibly give mine grief about not wanting to delve into spirituality or whatever term people prefer (I don't want to get hung up on that bit). I deal with that enough IRL as a semi-closeted atheist, so at the risk of indulging in a cliche: it's not you, it's me.

When I see some of the other responses in this thread, it gets clearer to me that, while the specifics may vary, a lot of players involved in Minmatar RP like that sort of thing. That's perfectly valid and fine and I can in no way fault anyone. But I just sort of realized that I like other things about EVE, and so as long as I was moving my focus off of Casiella for other reasons entirely, I'd drop that bit entirely.

This, incidentally, is why "Rogue Integer" is so staunchly antitheist, and I'd even suggest antispiritual. Maybe it's projection, maybe it's overreaction, but it's a little bit cathartic for sure. I've started to develop another irreligious character who's simply apathetic about the whole thing and that will be yet another (hopefully valid) approach.

[lallara zhuul]

The further this discussion goes the more I get the feeling that pretty much Shamans of the Minmatar culture == priests of the Minmatar culture.

Being a shaman in the Republic is pretty much a career choice as much as being a priest in any other religion.
Going further into a spiritual/mystical direction in the course of doing ones work is a personal choice (just like with priests.)
Vherokior have a separate sub-culture in the Republic where it is considered to be a good thing (or mandatory) to go down that spiritual path.

The job of a shaman is pretty much the same as of a priest.

To indoctrinate the population to certain aspects of the culture of the nation.

Pretty much you can replace the word priest with shaman (or vice versa) in any context that you can come up with.

Teaching you your morality.
Taking care of the spiritual well being of its congregation.
Performing the rituals of passage through different milestones of a persons life.
Giving 'advice' to you on what is right and what is wrong.

With the hi-tech cultures of the New Eden inducing any kind of altered mental state (be it from a deformity of a brain or licking toads) is easy as triggering an implant or eating a pill.

I believe that one option is that interpreting those altered mental states is nothing short of a training in another branch of psychology that we currently have no scientific study in.
Using that altered state of mind to access your perceptions of a situation in a more accurate and dissecting way.

Thus coming up with 'insights'.

Thus being 'mystic'.

[Ava Starfire]

That is the strange thing...

There is nothing supernatural in New Eden (or the real world).

Why would there be in the Republic?

With training and genetics in New Eden you can have preternatural capabilities for people, but never supernatural.

Kind of like the extremes of body control represented in sci-fi by the Bene Gesserit in Dune, which is based on body control exhibited by yogi in India.

I don't think the interesting thing here is discussing whether the Vherokior shamans are clairvoyant, the interesting part is the question on how they became extremely sagacious through the ages.

How did that fact affect the culture of the Minmatar before Day of Darkness?
Can anyone reach that same level of cultured intuition through training?
Is there a skill book about it?
Were they in on the Nefantar conspiracy on preserving the Starkmanir?
How about the preservation of the whole Minmatar culture by the same people?
Are they the willing tools of the Elders?
Have they always been?
Are they benign?
Is Voluval just a way of controlling the Minmatar population and assigning them to different castes by the whims of an elite?
Do old Holders possess similar skills?

Yes.

Seriously, all of this is quite likely true under various circumstances. I would be deeply surprised if attempts havent been made by some, at some point, to "manipulate" the Voluval.

[Ava Starfire]

While there isn't direct evidence, I would think that in a civilization of trillions of people, there are probably non-Vherokior shamans. Unless it's simply that spiritual leaders who aren't Vherokior are called something else?

Edit: To expand, given teh shambles that a lot of PF is, I hesitate any time I see CCP use an absolute (ie, all shamans are Vherokior Males).

You slipped an edit in there between me reading and starting my reply.

Tell me about this hesitation...

I think that every time we encounter "shaman" in PF it's in the context of "Vherokior male". One new chronicle could change that, of course, but if that is indeed the current situation in PF I'm inclined to treat it as significant.

We have it pretty clearly that it's Vherokior shamans who spread the Voluval even today.

I think it's highly likely that in a population of probably-trillions there are schizotypes who are not Vherokior. Do they get called shamans and slotted into the shaman role? Maybe. What's the role of a shaman in daily life? Do you want them around regularly, or do you invite them in only when you have a ritual that needs their involvement, and breathe a sigh of relief when you wave them farewell, laden with gifts and fees?

I think you could make cases for various scenarios. I think most of those cases are currently un-canonical (which tends to be a space where EVE RPers will go if there's a good story to tell), and some of them would be anti-canonical (which is where we start going "Dude, you're flying in a pod, or you biomass when you lose a ship, or we think the character is nutzo, okay?").

Its pretty well known I play Ava as a "spirit-guide" (And a sort of fumbling, bumbling one at that) who is, of course, not Vherokior. Due to the tiny smatterings of PF we have on Minmatar in general and religion in particular, I will pretty much do so until PF says "Nope."

I do acknowledge, ICly, that when a Voluval is to be performed, the syringes/contents must be recieved from an outside source, and are very carefully distributed on an "as needed" basis. It isnt something she, nor anyone in her circles, has any idea how to replicate, nor do they really know where it comes from. They go to a Tribal bureau, fill out the required forms, and are given what they need to perform the next ritual.

As far as duties, I run "shamans" as a catch all spiritual/physical advisor. They perform rituals, give advice, interpret *signs*, and act as teacher, historian, and doctor, all at once, due to the remote nature of the Clans that I have fleshed out a bit. Once again, this is not saying this is, or should be, PF, nor anyone else's take on it, which is why theyre "remote, isolated Clans". It is just my interpretation. The "shaman" in the Clans of the "ko'mak region of Mikramurka" have mundane day to day duties to their clan, just like anyone else. They simply have an added duty, and perhaps as a result, a bit of added prestige, and "pull" within the Clan hierarchy, due to their role.

Huge, widely varying ethnic groups will almost certainly have their own spiritual figures. I see no reason every Tribe wouldnt have their own "shamans", though they need not be anything remotely alike.

[lallara zhuul]

...and the choice of being a Shaman has nothing to do with your IRL inclinations?

[Seriphyn]

* Seriphyn walks in late

Has anyone brought up how the Minmatar have retained these spiritual beliefs despite being the 2nd civilization to reach space (before Gallente and Caldari)? It suggests the Minmatar have had a radically different social and technological development than what we are familiar with IRL (duh), for them to discover the science behind spaceflight and a whole crapload of other things and still follow this stuff (no equivalent to the Enlightenment). Similarly, with this in mind, it may infer that all of Minmatar society is radically different to what we know IRL.

If, perhaps, the name "tribe" was replaced with something more alien like "kiith" (though they are the same for all intents and purposes), then the disconnect from reality and the suspension into fantasy might be more accessible.

A Minmatar tribe has entire fleets, cities, and planets under their control. But, because of the specific use of the word "tribe", we make instant connections to real-life tribes, which are these agrarian groups in rural communities. It can't be helped. Sure, we can sit down and use our noggins and realize this, but it won't immediately cut out the first impression. It's like the Gallente Federation reading as a federal democracy, most people go "aaah space US!" but then you sit down and have a think, and realize that the two are completely different (one of them is in space that covers at least 4-5 completely different civilizations).

However, so much of PF is taken from real-life sources and EVE'd up, that making RL comparisons can't be helped. I blame it on the fact that CCP's writing ability back in 2003 was very limited because of how new they were.

[Matariki Rain]

Seri, the mantra here is "Tribal != Primitive". That notion seems to keep popping up, though: is it something we can work through so it sticks?

If you prefer, think of the tribes as being like the phyles of Neal Stephenson's Diamond Age.

[Seriphyn]

Well, I didn't walk in late for nothin'...heh

[Arnulf Ogunkoya]

The way I think of Minmatar shamanism is that considering the world to be alive, with a spirit for each part of it, is intended to make the follower of that faith respect it and be more in tune with it's demands. This would be a bit like my very sketchy understanding of taoism.

Does this seem reasonable to the rest of you?

[Matariki Rain]

The way I think of Minmatar shamanism is that considering the world to be alive, with a spirit for each part of it, is intended to make the follower of that faith respect it and be more in tune with it's demands. This would be a bit like my very sketchy understanding of taoism.

Does this seem reasonable to the rest of you?

Arnulf, I think it's a reasonable thing to believe about Minmatar shamanism, and there should be people around who believe that.

If you haven't already, you might find it interesting to have a look at animism, pantheism, and maybe even panentheism. The early parts of the (long) Wikipedia article on shamanism are helpful, too.

Taoism's actually an interesting model to examine for ideas, and not one I'd considered in that light. One of the traditions it most likely drew from is the South-Chinese wu shamanism. I also like the idea of seeing how a tradition that included practices to extend life, ideally to the point of immortality, might deal with pod-pilot "cloning". I think there could be some fragmentation and fruitful angst there.