From: Jeanraiso-AT-aol.com
Date: Sat, 2 Jan 1999 13:27:46 EST
Subject: Re : Matter-flows; shamans, reiki, fire walking


here are stories and thoughts that I find somewhat relevant  to unleesh's
questions-reflexions:

when I stayed (alone, for a week)  in a small shipibo village in peruvian
amazonia, I listened to many stories told by the son of the village's chaman ;
one of those stories was about the poncho of an old chaman ; the story says
that the chaman was so powerful that his clothes were filled with power; you
could feel it just by putting this poncho on you; and if you would keep it,
you would get sick, overwhelmed by its power right away.

I believe that this story is true; and that it doesn't mean that a foreigner
would have felt the power of the pancho , and it doesn't mean either that this
power was "just" in the minds of the people.

 <<It implies that somehow a matter-flow
carries traces, clues, hints, fossils with it of all its history of relations;
Is this an entirely illogical thought?>>

I think the idea that it could not carry all its history of relations is
related to a denial of singularity that comes with the fascination for the
effectivity of modern science in describing and putting in equations the
similarities (between 'atoms' etc...)
(and that every one feeling or touching an object is doing something  to it;
so there is no such a thing as a static 'object')
there is this story that I heard from an eye witness of a man totaly commited
to healing work with the hands (reiki) who knew instantly, by touching it,
that someone had used his cushion when his was away and who it was who had
used it.

a last story I want to share is about fire walking (on red coals): I have done
it (it was even fire dancing!) and I remember very clearly this instant shift
in my awareness from fear to  a kind of fanatic trust which allowed me to make
the first step on the fire; and then I could feel the  coals under my feet,
their texture (I was bare feet) but not at all the heat; not at all; then
after a few minutes I was very excited and started to think about it , to
reflect on it, and to come out of the 'fanatic trust'; then I could feel the
fear coming back and at the same time the heat in my feet; so I stopped ; I
wasn't burned ; I had only three little spots  on each foot at the same place.
In the night after I was very excited by that experience;shifting back and
forth in my mind from believing in the interpretation of the leader of the
ceremony (a new age ceremony): "if you get in touch with your fire within then
you will not get burned by the fire outside"; and the tautological scientist
interpretation: "if you have done it , then it proves that it was possible
within the laws of nature; it's 'just' that red coals don't conduct heat very
well"
Somehow I could'nt fully buy any of those; and I would end laughing totally
puzzled by the paradox.

I wonder what  philosophy would become if taking acid, fire walking, vision
quest, reiki etc...would be part of the training...

jean r.