Jenny L. M. (2022-04-27 07:51:02), category: shamanism

I agree with that. He has sown seeds, or rather maybe he’s been a somewhat successful link in passing on knowledge about this. The spirits might have placed Mr Gaup right where and when he needed to be. Like you say, maybe that goes for you as well. Your name carries resemblance to a noaidi that I have heard of. Perhaps it was even the same name?

What’s your take on the monotheistic religions compared to shamanism? On a slightly related note, would you say that those monotheistic religions are creating an imbalance in neglecting the feminine side of society? (I know, it’s a leading question and quite imbalanced as well).

I don’t know why humanity don’t learn. Maybe we have strayed away from spiritual guidance? The balancing act from being conscious of the spirits is maybe lost? Whenever no higher power is making you aware of the bigger picture, you may not take that broader picture into account? Everything becomes arbitrary actions entertaining your immediate pleasure. I believe most people don’t realize that there is a bigger picture. A politician who really sees the big picture will never make it to office if he or she is campaigning for a healthy earth in an eternal perspective. Neither would a corporate CEO survive the wrath of the stockholders displaying visions like that. Politicians of such mindsets are being ostracized on a daily basis for thinking about that out loud. The kids want their candy now.

Bottom line? I don’t have a clue. Do you?


Best regards,

Jenny

Ove (2022-04-27 15:42:06, updated 2022-04-27 17:32:47)

Sure. I appear to be a patrilineal descendant of Mathias Andreassen Kaaven, Johan Kaaven’s brother. Johan became well-known for having extremely powerful magical powers. His legacy does influence us in various ways. Not sure if you know this, but my sister Elin is a singer-songwriter who sings in her native Sámi language, but throughout her life she has also been slowly developing her spirituality. She has a special connection to the spirits of nature. She’s not a shaman, she doesn’t go around healing people, at least not yet, but I suspect that her power to heal and bring light can still be heard in her songs. (But she does have a proper shaman, “Jungle Svonni”, as a boyfriend. It’s also one who didn’t learn from Ailo Gaup, but went on his own journey to the Amazon jungle to learn. Their current blog is “Beneath Northern Lights”)

Note that I do not really consider Johan Kaaven a shaman/noaidi. There’s no evidence of him working in that way (he didn’t need a drum, for example). Shamans (and others) distinguish between different types of magic users by whence their power come, and I believe Johan would fall into the category of “sorcerer”. A shaman, or noaidi, is granted healing powers by the grace of higher spirits/gods. A sorcerer, by contrast, takes power by manipulating Earth-bound spirits, such as spirits of the dead. (Some say that Johan did this by cleverly and fearlessly surviving an encounter with the Wild Hunt, thus making the Wild Hunt spirits obey him. Not sure how much to believe that, though.) Several stories about Johan concern how he had an army of the dead at his command, which he could order to do gruesome things if he wanted. A shaman/noaidi wouldn’t be able to do that, because higher spirits wouldn’t allow their power to be abused in that way. But Earth-bound spirits might. (This also relates, I think, to why nobody in the Kåven lineage became noaidis after Johan: the power he possessed, was tainted. Any new host for them would need to possess great mental strength, wisdom, and willpower in order not to be consumed or destroyed.)

Anyway, monotheism. As some shamans have said (maybe I read this in Ailo Gaup’s book, not sure right now): religion is what you get when you combine spirituality with politics. I think religions might come into existence when, for example, a particular spirit decides to interfere with how humans live their lives (some of them like to do that). Also, some spirits just love being worshipped. When humans allow this, monotheistic religions may happen. But true shamans will of course know that all such religions are false; the religion’s “god” might very well exist in some form in the spirit world, but its nature is severely misrepresented, usually in order to push some sociopolitical agenda (e.g. Jesus Christ essentially pushed a socialistic agenda). Which is, of course, part of the reason why it’s always been so important for the Church to destroy all witches, sorcerers, and shamans, and their books and things.

Monotheistic religions don’t necessarily create a gender imbalance, since the Creator does not need to have a particular gender (and in many religions, it doesn’t). The problem with that is that genderless deities tend to be abstract and hard to relate to. They’re hard to personify. Thus, it seems almost all gods that people actually worship and pray to have a gender. And, of course, once you assign a gender to the Creator, people can take advantage of that to establish power structures that will favor that gender. The Abrahamic religions (Christianity, Judaism, Islam) consider their god male, along with their first human, and it has been used to justify systematic oppression of women and their rights and dignity. There’s no spiritual reason women should be restricted like that, it’s just politics from the time the religion was founded. Which, in turn, is partially rooted in men’s fear of the spiritual power that women actually possess. (See the table in my article The Meaning of Life, part 2)

And, yeah, why do humans not learn? I don’t think it necessarily has to do with spiritual guidance. We consider ourselves the most intelligent species on Earth, or, well, at least the most innovative. We solve problems on a large scale, we should be smart enough to understand the following without guidance: don’t make your own home an inescapable death trap. Not even if doing so would gain you time, money, energy, or other resources. Just don’t do it. This is simple enough that you shouldn’t need spiritual guidance. A little bit of common sense should be enough. How is this so hard for humanity to understand? Don’t make your own home an inescapable death trap. How can all of mankind combined be too stupid to understand this?

Do I have a clue? I’m not sure. Maybe. I’ve spent years, decades, on what is essentially the question: how can humanity be this stupid? I’ve tried exploring the issue from many angles. Scientific, logical, psychological, evolutionary, and so on. It’s one of the reasons I, for example, reached the conclusion that rationality isn’t a thing that exists. So stupidity is enabled, for example, when people believe too much in rationality, particularly their own. (It’s of course possible to be fair, objective, unbiased, and prudent, to some extent (depends on the situation), and you may be able to use logic to reach certain conclusions (which is good if you can), but you can’t really be rational. It’s mathematically, logically, computationally, practically, biologically, and physically impossible.)

I’m still looking into it, though, So maybe I’ve started to get a rough idea, I hope, but I’m not clear on every detail yet. And then there’s still the question of what to do about it, which I certainly can’t answer yet, sadly.