Past Sermons by Rev. George Smith, Retired

Human Spirit; Personal Will

9/1/02

Reading: Some time ago when my mind went out to Aspen, Colorado, in that little town, a group was celebrating the Goethe Bicentennial. They were celebrating it because Goethe was one of the great universalists who sought reality in the farthest reaches of his imagination. He was the great man to be remembered, and so they asked great men to come and help us to remember him. There were great philosophers and great educators, great poets and great novelists. But something strange happened. The great men they brought there, and even Goethe who was to be remembered, sank into the background. The great thing which happened at Aspen was Albert Schweitzer! The cynical Goethe would have smiled at that. Here was a medical missionary from Equatorial Africa. The gentlemen of the press called him the greatest missionary who ever lived. They spoke of him as a lion who laughs. They referred to him as the thirteenth disciple. They made much of the fact that he is the only man who ever earned a doctorate in medicine and music and philosophy and theology. The reporters assigned to Aspen vied with one another in finding words which would describe the greatness of this man. So much so that they finally lost their sense of proportion and spoke of him as a monolith. Now, I am not convinced that Albert Schweitzer is the greatest missionary who ever lived; he is probably the most versatile. But that is immaterial. Why was he so great at Aspen? Because he stands for the only things that really have value in life: a dedication, a surrender of self, a forgetting of one’s personal well-being, a trying to lift the lowest to the highest level possible, healing somebody’s wounds, pushing someone’s horizon of hope farther out. And so the missionary who lost himself in the jungle becomes the greatest thing in our modern day. –Arnold Hilmar Lowe.

In a recent newspaper article, a lower echelon Enron executive expressed great surprise that the one executive whom she had considered a very caring and giving person played an important role in the development of the off-shore companies that padded the accounts of several of the executives at the expense of the company.. It was difficult for her to believe that he had done such a deed. She was witnessing the other side of personal power from that of Albert Schweitzer. This sense of personal power has been witnessed in a variety of recent events such as the executives of several large companies literally leading their businesses to destruction because of personal gain at the expense of the whole; and the Catholic Church floundering in a morass of abuse both at the local parish level and in the hierarchy. Personal Power is one of the most difficult things we deal with as humans. Even I as a church leader experience the seductive aspects of personal power needing to work on stepping aside when my actions could threaten that positive balance. It is in essence the real problem we inherited in the so called fall when Adam and Eve ate from the fruit, the apple, of the tree of good and evil in the Garden of Eden.

I want to consider this issue of personal power by looking at shamanism. The Shaman is a most powerful person in his or her own culture. Most of the ideas here about Shamanism come from a book by Michael Harner called The Way of the Shaman. Just some background from which to begin our exploration, the word Shaman itself comes from the language of the Tungus people of Siberia. It is a term that can refer to a witch, witch doctor, medicine man or woman, sorcerer, wizard, magician and seer. A shaman is simply a man or woman who enters an altered state of consciousness to contact and to utilize an ordinarily hidden reality in order to acquire knowledge, or power to help heal and rejuvenate people. To continue this theme the Shaman in essence sees into the darkness perceiving what others do not. Iglulik Eskimo shaman is called qauman Eq meaning lightening or enlightenment.

Shamanism developed in low technological cultures as a means to cope with illness and survival. Archeologists and ethnologists suggest that shamanism goes back at least 30,000 years and possibly has always been a part of humanity. It is the oldest of the mind body healing systems. Where as economic, marriage and family, artistic, educational, and political systems vary quite a bit across the various cultures, Shamanic knowledge is fairly similar throughout these same cultures.

As an aside, it is interesting that recent studies of severe mental illness focuses on the family as a partner in the healing process in some cases bringing about changes better than drugs—a mind body intervention. Milton Eriksson, a psychologist of the last century noted for his work with mind-body therapies, helped those in pain and with some psychological issues through his peculiar interventions, developed out of his theories focused on his own struggle with paralyzing polio at a young age.

The Shaman derives his or her power from his or her ability to heal, to bring enlightenment to others. Consider the types of power in our culture—money, leadership and influence, knowledge, creativity, just to name a few. All sources of power in our culture. All having in common the sense that they attract our attention and our interest. We learn the avenues of power and use the tools therein to gain that attraction that interest to elevate us above others. Look at the avenue of knowledge. You go to school, college and graduate school, become an expert in your field. As you develop this body of knowledge, you are sought after for this knowledge. You have gained attention. You being to have power.

The Shaman derives his or her power as a go between for the ordinary and non-ordinary reality, and he or she manipulates this spiritual power to help people. They especially help dis-spirited people to find their spirits. Part of the process is for a Shaman to journeys into non-ordinary reality to recover one’s lost spirit/soul and to return it to the patient or the shaman may extract harmful power from the hurting person. Such healing is done in an altered state of consciousness that can be induced by drugs or through the use of visualization, imagery, or drumming each produces changes in the CNS affecting areas of the brain not ordinarily used. These are similar to the affects of yogic breathing on the CNS. It is important to note that the Shaman does not confuse ordinary with non-ordinary reality each has its place and part to play in the Shaman’s life. Not unlike the college professor whose specific knowledge is important for certain settings but not others.

Shamans access their power through a guardian spirit discovered in a spirit quest to some remote wilderness place such as the mountains, a large isolated waterfall, or just an isolated trail at night. This guardian spirit, often a power animal which becomes another identity or alter ego for the Shaman, helps him or her to learn how to cope with and master the non-ordinary hidden spiritual power.

Back to our example of knowledge as our power source, as we gain more knowledge, we access more of the guardians of knowledge gaining more power. We become listened to and more the center of attention. Consider a man like Alan Greenspan, who because of his knowledge and also his influence has become one of the most listened to persons in relationship to our economy in our country developed over the years, one piece at a time.

Shamans not only heal but engage in divination seeing the past and the future using this info to help other members of the community. Some use stones seeing the veins and markings as patterns to be interpreted. It is a matter of intuition and knowledge, not unlike the Rorschach test or free association. Much of our life is a matter of the combination of both of these avenues of understanding life.

What makes a good and mature shaman? It is here that we hopefully will be helped to understand the wise use of personal power. First he or she knows that he doesn’t know everything. The Shaman is a continuous learner exploring his or her experience and integrating it ones total cosmology. Second, he or she does not consider another’s experience a fantasy. Carl Whitaker, famous marriage and family therapist, knew this as well when he always took seriously even the hallucinations of psychotic clients knowing that behind the peculiar images there was a kernel of truth, some meaning to be explored with the client. Thirdly, the shaman sees in awe the complexity and magnificence of the universe and nature. Knowing that in one’s own life time you can only come to know just a small part of it. As a part of this he or she pursues research into the mystery of the universe believing that the underlying causal processes of the universe are hidden from ordinary view. Fourthly, the shaman does not allow religious dogma or political authorities to get in the way of his or her investigations. He or she is an empiricist who relies on first hand experience of the senses to acquire knowledge. It is this humble view that none of us knows what is going on; we only have a limited view of the universe that allows him or her to move in and out of ordinary reality as a necessity for help. Fifthly he or she learns to respect all of life, even inanimate objects. The Shaman knows that we are dependence on plants, animals and all that exists on this planet. We are related to all forms of life. They are our relatives. All are one.

Consider these five items: Knowing our limitations in that we don’t know all and being a continuous learner developing your own cosmology, being willing to connect with others in their own reality, seeing life as supremely complex, not being under the control of another’s ideas continually exploring your own, and respecting all that is in existence, is what makes for positive and effective personal power. It requires discipline and attention. It explores the depth of meaning in your own life. It then becomes a power for the betterment of others.

Go back to the reading this morning and Albert Schweitzer, if you were to dissect his life, you would discover each of the above in his life. For instance his doctoral thesis in theology went counter to the thoughts and ideas of his time. He focused on consider Jesus as a person with mental illness—for his time they used the term mad man. Certainly his quest for more than one doctorate showed his continuous focus on learning. And especially his reference for life and his work in Africa showed his sense of the complexity of nature and that we are all one. There much more but suffice it to say that we each can explore our personal power and can tune it to a positive help for others.

Finally, a theme that I want to explore through out the rest of the coming fall sermons is the concept of unity in diversity or diversity in unity. These five elements help us to discover and to be effective in this unity diversity paradox. Hopefully this will open up to you a variety of different ways to explore this very important issue.