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New Age and Shamanism in the Forest - Case study in the Peruvian Amazon.


Web link: www.neip.info/downloads...

Abstract

The concepts of “New Age” and “Chamanism” have proved tough to anthropological interpretation through their expansion and the particularities of the various expressions that make up them. Such concepts have an academic interest precisely because of their unwelcome character, the impossibility of giving them a sharp and precise definition that would encompass the whole homogeneously. In addition, New Age and Shamanisms are constantly evolving because their societies of origin are also: in contact with new cultural expressions, they choose, translate and integrate in their way the elements offered to them. The New Age and Chamanism are similar in more than one level, occupied with their theories of spiritual worlds, disease and healing, conflict, ethics, ecology or travel. The search for new techniques and the acquisition of new powers leads Shaman – Amazonian or New Age – to move away from his village in search of maestros from various backgrounds to mythified traditions, to the wisdom glorified by the people of his people, and probably also idealized by his hosts. A new source of legitimacy to establish his prestige and power of action in his original society is given to him by his distant travels, both in the human world and in the supernatural, in this magical and delighted universe that he seeks to seize, adopt and perpetuate him among his own despite the changes, despite the fact that he has been hunting for witches. Cartooning somewhat inability to give a sharp and comprehensive definition to these two symbolic systems here analysed, I would almost like to say that the New Age becomes for “postmodern” what Shamanism is for “wild”: a source of meaning, health, contact, spirituality… In any event, more than ever the opposite worlds of “modern” and “wild” are intertwined, each in his own way, with his own goals, specific expectations, positive, anodine or harmful contributions, pride, openings and mistrembling in the field of encounter. Unlike previous historical contacts and current conflicts of relatively new indigenous organisations, Cartooning somewhat inability to give a sharp and comprehensive definition to these two symbolic systems here analysed, I would almost like to say that the New Age becomes for “postmodern” what Shamanism is for “wild”: a source of meaning, health, contact, spirituality… In any event, more than ever the opposite worlds of “modern” and “wild” are intertwined, each in his own way, with his own goals, specific expectations, positive, anodine or harmful contributions, pride, openings and mistrembling in the field of encounter. Unlike previous historical contacts and current conflicts of relatively new indigenous organisations, shamanic tourism clearly has a significant value – certainly partial and idealized – of native traditions and identity, their lifestyle, wisdom, and without having fundamental problems and questions. Integrative of separate but interlaced worlds, which it opens and closes the passages according to his wishes, the figure of the shamane is here more than ever the turning point of the encounter between the Amazon world and postmodern society. The borrowings made by the Shaman are part of its integrative role by which it learns, translates and manages innovation in order to transmit it to its community, but also to the various surrounding communities. The latter is remarkable and deserves more investigation, but it is already tempted to say that the influx of tourists and their contacts with the Shamans in Iquitos creates a necessary reorganization of alterity in the sense that the groups that were scattered and often in constant conflict are led to consider themselves as a “We” in relation to these “Other” and the development prospects they bring. Shaman would no longer work for its small group, but expanded its activities to “native communities”. It seems clear that this phenomenon is largely due to globalization, remains to know how the conflicts between these communities and with the “outside world” are managed, but above all how the role of shamanism in conflict management and reproduction is transformed. Shamans, professionals of border transgression, transformation, communication with spirits, innovation and healing, have the freedom to work openly – and without restrictions other than those of their institution – in the city and around Iquitos. They are no longer the shamans that worked primarily for their restricted groups, but they now work with individuals and are open to the world through their new contacts, thanks to the constant arrival of foreign customers, through the Internet where many of them already have a site or a space. Shamanism – the main attraction pole, the central reason for this encounter and the framework of the same – certainly intends to adapt, resist and perpetuate, take advantage of it and modernize itself. Will you continue to call them "shamans"? The use of ayahuasca poses a new central problem in the answer to these questions. If the advances in science (neuropharmacology, neuropsychiatry, etc.) are correct, we would be faced with a substance that actually acts in psychic processes and we could say that the traxes of the shamans accomplished are real. The learning by plants, as desired by the ayahuasqueros shamanes, would be open in a way to anyone who can cross the rigours of dietas. Many questions open up if you imagine a more widespread use and dissemination of the worship that use ayahuasca. Unlike Santo Daime and these syncretisms, ayahuasquero is even more compatible with postmodern thinking by voluntary, individual, and not dogmatic character. Who will take the “victory” in the struggle for the prevalence of its own symbolic markers, its structures of thought, its conceptions of life, person, universe and human place on earth? The question is misleading, because this time it is not a struggle or a conflicting cultural shock between cultures. The New Age is precisely trying to show that Western rationality is deceptive and alienating, showing that Indians are not wrong, that the world cannot be fully understood from the assumptions of rationality and science, because the world in which we live would indeed be filled with magic. When I asked Don Rómulo if he thought that the influx of tourists would have an effect on his traditions, he said: “Everything changes, the world changes… but who changes? – Did he ask me – I stay the same… at home we are the same. I hear that we change people.”