So I've been reading about "shaman" recently

[regularguy]

since someone close to me is getting into this stuff. Almost everything I read I laugh at at first, thinking it to be some sort of satire, but it never is. When I realize it's not satire I don't know if I should laugh even harder or cry. So today I read probably the most idiotic piece on nonsense that I've ever come across:

http://orgonesoulwork.blogspot.com/2006/11/about-that-ringing-in-your-ears.html

A combination of ET, reptile, and black government types would appear to be the sources of these implants. The shamanic practitioners I work with have found that there is an astral shell or etheric envelope that surrounds the physical body, and that this energy shell is what is often tampered with. Many of the etheric implants are placed here. Remote viewers and remote astral projectors working in dark ops seem to be able to maneuver this body from location to location as well, which explains the common phenomena of astral "peekers"...

Normally I would just have a chuckle, but I'm sad thinking about my friend, a smart, decent person with an admittedly active imagination. Just really fucking sad. :cry:

[Warpy]

1. There seems to be a huge gulf between what

idiotic New Agers write about shamanism and what shamanism actually is.

Most of it can be explained by the placebo effect. I've actually witnessed a few things that couldn't be explained by the placebo effect, though.

Medicine can be a weird field sometimes.

[Random_Australian]

2. Generic comment: Anecdote vs data, double blind testing,

can't tell what has happened without doing something to actually test what is going on.

The usual.

But forgetting is bad.

[Warpy]

4. That's just it, the testing was done

and there was nothing the medical profession could have done to have provoked such a drastic change.

Like I said, medicine is a weird field.

Perhaps in the future, we'll know what provokes such changes, be able to predict the patients in which such changes are likely to occur, and be able to provoke such drastic condition changes in non susceptible patients.

Until then, it just goes into the "Wow, that was weird!" file drawer.

[realisticphish]

3. i know i have

LOTS of trouble with astral "peekers." Little fuckers keep throwing eggs at my house

[L. Coyote]

5. Shaman is just a word in English to categorize outsiders.

It is a referent to a specialization in an outside culture,
a label for something unknown in the culture of the language,
a label that does not correspond to that culture's own labels.

The word comes from the Shama who wore feathers of a colorful bird by the name,
and this name is the name for an outside people used by the Agarici, dull, featherless farmers.

Shaman does not exist in any culture as a self-referent.
No culture has anyone they call a "shaman" in their own culture.
Cultures with persons called "shaman" by outsiders don't themselves know they are such.

I found out, in the UCLA library, that one of my associates in the jungle in Peru was a "shaman."
An anthropology student did a thesis on it. Meanwhile, back in the Amazon, noone knew he had a job title!

Anyway, all this does not stop naive English-speakers from "becoming" shaman without looking up the word!
Self-delusion is not just easy, it propagates. See religions! Still, it is too hilarious to just cry :rofl:

[Orrex]

6. Whatever you do, don't squeeze the shaman

Unless you go for the other pronunciation, in which case shaman you! Shame! Shame! Shaman you, I say!

[regularguy]

8. I've always suspected that Mr. Whipple

was a reptilian alien of some sort. Now you've done gone and proved it!

[semillama]

7. It would be better if it were this type of shaman:

http://www.youtube.com/v/waknraJfwvQ&hl=en

"I'm William Shatner, and I'm a Shaman."

[regularguy]

9. These Shaman seem ok too:

SHA-MA-NA: